11 ms·

To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was

by joshe 4y ago

To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. This could have been that the rsi injury complaints were true and unaddressed promptly. Or that the managers came off as cold in communications. Or 5 other things they could have done better.

jollybean 4y ago
In Amazon's purview, 'the problem' is that the 'union was formed'. It's a signal to the managers of the other warehouses that if a union is formed on their watch, they are toast.
- rolandog 4y ago
  Wouldn't it be ironic that this makes Senior Managers realize it's in their best interest to join a union?
  - stormbrew 4y ago
    Most unions don’t allow managers to join, as they’re generally considered to be part of capital’s collective bargaining side, if not part of capital themselves. I think most modern labor theory includes a “professional-managerial class” to account for this. There’s an argument to be had about where this line makes sense in modern megacorps but local managers in blue collar work tend to hold a lot of power over their employees in particular regardless of the shape of the corporation they’re under, so it would be surprising if they could. Edit: fair points in the replies about management unions and that I was focused on a North American perspective. I was interpreting the post I replied to as saying the managers would join the union (as in the same one), but they didn't actually say that. I can definitely believe that things would be different in a less union-adversarial environment. But it's still pretty unlikely that warehouse bosses at amazon would be welcome in the same union as the workers, or be likely to manage to unionize themselves successfully. The incentives just don't really align well in this context: corporate has too many carrots and sticks.
    - tokai 4y ago
      Every group can organize. There's no magical barrier. Dunno about the US but unions for management does exist in other countries.
      - syshum 4y ago
        This is one of the ongoing problems with discussion about "unions" "Unions" in the US are very very very very very different legally than "unions" in EU and other nations, personally i think they are so different we need a different term for them... The closest we have to a EU style union would be something like SAG, or the other entertainment unions, which often referr to themselves as Guilds. The employment unions like being formed at amazon are different animals all together which have ALOT of downside for even the workers in them.
        happymellon 4y ago
        > which have ALOT of downside for even the workers in them. Do you have examples? As someone in the UK I don't see anything different between the Amazon workers Union and the unions here except for age and experience. They all just want to not be treated like dirt.
        syshum 4y ago
        The big difference (and please correct me if I get UK info wrong, I am not an expert in UK Labor, I am versed in US Labor) that in the UK you have sector unions, not enterprise unions. A company may have employee's working under several unions, and I believe there are even competiting Sector unions that an employee can choose to join finding the union that best suites them In the US, typically, the is a 1:1 union, enterprise relationship. If you want to work at company X, you must join Union Y with no options to join a competing union, no options to opt out, and no regress if you do not feel the union is representing your interests. referred to as "closed shops" there is large amounts of corruption, favoritism, and other negative quality to many US Unions.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    To be like Lukashenko and read the winds of change and to get with the winning team. They have no power otherwise, they're just cogs in the system. Influence to avoid having the union, but if one is going to form ... then beg to join it. Bend like a reed in the wind, it's all they can hope to do.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    Senior managers (heck, even line managers) do not have the right to unionize.
    - shlurpy 4y ago
      Historically, no group has a right to unionize until they fight to earn it, usually through unionization.
    - nobodyandproud 4y ago
      The rules of unionization need to change with the times. The line manager making less than a SWE 1 isn’t in the same league as senior management who own a significant portion of the company equity. Even software engineers are subjected to the meat grinder in Amazon.
      - rolandog 4y ago
        Indeed. I feel the benefit of unionizing for managers is making the buck stop earlier in the trickle-down chain of bad policies or orders.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Could be many reasons I guess. But maybe we should apply the Labor–Capital Razor: what signal does this send to the remaining managers? And what are they likely to do in response?
- ISL 4y ago
  If GP is correct, then that signal would be, "Treat everyone who works here more-fairly and address their concerns in a timely manner. It is in everyone's best interest."
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    In that case then the concerns of the workers could have been addressed by going over the heads of the senior managers to the higher-ups. Which provokes two questions: - Why did it get to the point of a strike if this was just a case of bad internal communication? - Does this theory really gel with how aggressive Amazon has been against unionization activity? Apparently they could have just met the concerns of the workers immediately. EDIT: > If GP is correct, then that signal would be, On second thought: I am talking about the likely signal that they want to send to other managers, i.e. how they will interpret it. And to just spell it out: I think they will be more wary of associating with unions.
  - xmprt 4y ago
    > If GP is correct Only the Amazon higher ups will know this. Managers will see the correlation between unionizing and getting fired and connect the dots.
    - darkerside 4y ago
      This seems like one of those optical illusions that can look either way. Duck or rabbit? What color is the dress? Young lady or old hag? Managers are obviously fired because the union was formed. They shouldn't let another form. Are they expected to respond by creating a trustful and inclusive environment, or by ruling through fear?
dragonwriter 4y ago
> To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. You’d think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the actual labor conditions driving the desire to unionize and not the failure of worksite union-busting efforts leading up to the vote.
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
  Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie? They're not omniscient.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie? So, you think that they managed to systemically cover up their misdeeds from higher management before the election, but conveniently failed to continue that coverup after the union election. I mean, sure, you concoct a strained narrative which makes this a noble move by Amazon’s higher management, but...why strain to do that?
    - avgcorrection 4y ago
      It’s the Amazon senior manager cabal which manages to coordinate better and have better information across the whole company compared to the Amazon executives. You have not heard of it?
    - readthenotes1 4y ago
      I don't find that a strained narrative at all. -- I once wrote a status report where I reported that I thought something would be a problem blocking my progress if it weren't resolved. My manager's status report said that there might be a issue. His managers report said everything was on track. -- If you don't think that the upper management got into hot water and then started paying a lot more attention to their on-site managers after the Union vote, you and I live in different worlds.
coliveira 4y ago
No, this is just the beginning of their counterstrike. I fully expect Amazon to close that warehouse as soon as they legally can.
- noizejoy 4y ago
  Related: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wal-mart-to-close-unionized-quebec-store-1.554398 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wal-mart-to-close-unionized... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-wal-mart-workers-win-supreme-court-victory-1.2689646 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-wal...
barbazoo 4y ago
Seems weird to just fire a bunch of managers instead of working on fixing the problem with them.
Zamaamiro 4y ago
I’m curious why this strikes you as a more reasonable explanation. It seems to me that you would need to make more assumptions to arrive at this conclusion than to arrive at other alternative conclusions.

by joshe 4y ago

jollybean 4y ago

In Amazon's purview, 'the problem' is that the 'union was formed'. It's a signal to the managers of the other warehouses that if a union is formed on their watch, they are toast.

rolandog 4y ago
Wouldn't it be ironic that this makes Senior Managers realize it's in their best interest to join a union?
- stormbrew 4y ago
  Most unions don’t allow managers to join, as they’re generally considered to be part of capital’s collective bargaining side, if not part of capital themselves. I think most modern labor theory includes a “professional-managerial class” to account for this. There’s an argument to be had about where this line makes sense in modern megacorps but local managers in blue collar work tend to hold a lot of power over their employees in particular regardless of the shape of the corporation they’re under, so it would be surprising if they could. Edit: fair points in the replies about management unions and that I was focused on a North American perspective. I was interpreting the post I replied to as saying the managers would join the union (as in the same one), but they didn't actually say that. I can definitely believe that things would be different in a less union-adversarial environment. But it's still pretty unlikely that warehouse bosses at amazon would be welcome in the same union as the workers, or be likely to manage to unionize themselves successfully. The incentives just don't really align well in this context: corporate has too many carrots and sticks.
  - tokai 4y ago
    Every group can organize. There's no magical barrier. Dunno about the US but unions for management does exist in other countries.
    - syshum 4y ago
      This is one of the ongoing problems with discussion about "unions" "Unions" in the US are very very very very very different legally than "unions" in EU and other nations, personally i think they are so different we need a different term for them... The closest we have to a EU style union would be something like SAG, or the other entertainment unions, which often referr to themselves as Guilds. The employment unions like being formed at amazon are different animals all together which have ALOT of downside for even the workers in them.
      - happymellon 4y ago
        > which have ALOT of downside for even the workers in them. Do you have examples? As someone in the UK I don't see anything different between the Amazon workers Union and the unions here except for age and experience. They all just want to not be treated like dirt.
        syshum 4y ago
        The big difference (and please correct me if I get UK info wrong, I am not an expert in UK Labor, I am versed in US Labor) that in the UK you have sector unions, not enterprise unions. A company may have employee's working under several unions, and I believe there are even competiting Sector unions that an employee can choose to join finding the union that best suites them In the US, typically, the is a 1:1 union, enterprise relationship. If you want to work at company X, you must join Union Y with no options to join a competing union, no options to opt out, and no regress if you do not feel the union is representing your interests. referred to as "closed shops" there is large amounts of corruption, favoritism, and other negative quality to many US Unions.
- jollybean 4y ago
  To be like Lukashenko and read the winds of change and to get with the winning team. They have no power otherwise, they're just cogs in the system. Influence to avoid having the union, but if one is going to form ... then beg to join it. Bend like a reed in the wind, it's all they can hope to do.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  Senior managers (heck, even line managers) do not have the right to unionize.
  - shlurpy 4y ago
    Historically, no group has a right to unionize until they fight to earn it, usually through unionization.
  - nobodyandproud 4y ago
    The rules of unionization need to change with the times. The line manager making less than a SWE 1 isn’t in the same league as senior management who own a significant portion of the company equity. Even software engineers are subjected to the meat grinder in Amazon.
    - rolandog 4y ago
      Indeed. I feel the benefit of unionizing for managers is making the buck stop earlier in the trickle-down chain of bad policies or orders.

avgcorrection 4y ago

Could be many reasons I guess. But maybe we should apply the Labor–Capital Razor: what signal does this send to the remaining managers? And what are they likely to do in response?

ISL 4y ago
If GP is correct, then that signal would be, "Treat everyone who works here more-fairly and address their concerns in a timely manner. It is in everyone's best interest."
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  In that case then the concerns of the workers could have been addressed by going over the heads of the senior managers to the higher-ups. Which provokes two questions: - Why did it get to the point of a strike if this was just a case of bad internal communication? - Does this theory really gel with how aggressive Amazon has been against unionization activity? Apparently they could have just met the concerns of the workers immediately. EDIT: > If GP is correct, then that signal would be, On second thought: I am talking about the likely signal that they want to send to other managers, i.e. how they will interpret it. And to just spell it out: I think they will be more wary of associating with unions.
- xmprt 4y ago
  > If GP is correct Only the Amazon higher ups will know this. Managers will see the correlation between unionizing and getting fired and connect the dots.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    This seems like one of those optical illusions that can look either way. Duck or rabbit? What color is the dress? Young lady or old hag? Managers are obviously fired because the union was formed. They shouldn't let another form. Are they expected to respond by creating a trustful and inclusive environment, or by ruling through fear?

dragonwriter 4y ago

> To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. You’d think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the actual labor conditions driving the desire to unionize and not the failure of worksite union-busting efforts leading up to the vote.

sieabahlpark 4y ago
Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie? They're not omniscient.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Not if it was literally covered up systemically at each warehouse where the issues lie? So, you think that they managed to systemically cover up their misdeeds from higher management before the election, but conveniently failed to continue that coverup after the union election. I mean, sure, you concoct a strained narrative which makes this a noble move by Amazon’s higher management, but...why strain to do that?
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    It’s the Amazon senior manager cabal which manages to coordinate better and have better information across the whole company compared to the Amazon executives. You have not heard of it?
  - readthenotes1 4y ago
    I don't find that a strained narrative at all. -- I once wrote a status report where I reported that I thought something would be a problem blocking my progress if it weren't resolved. My manager's status report said that there might be a issue. His managers report said everything was on track. -- If you don't think that the upper management got into hot water and then started paying a lot more attention to their on-site managers after the Union vote, you and I live in different worlds.

coliveira 4y ago

No, this is just the beginning of their counterstrike. I fully expect Amazon to close that warehouse as soon as they legally can.

noizejoy 4y ago
Related: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wal-mart-to-close-unionized-quebec-store-1.554398 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wal-mart-to-close-unionized... https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-wal-mart-workers-win-supreme-court-victory-1.2689646 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-unionized-wal...

barbazoo 4y ago

Seems weird to just fire a bunch of managers instead of working on fixing the problem with them.

Zamaamiro 4y ago

I’m curious why this strikes you as a more reasonable explanation. It seems to me that you would need to make more assumptions to arrive at this conclusion than to arrive at other alternative conclusions.