4 ms·

Mistaking employees for trespassers, and mistaking your own property boundaries, combine to make a fairly large mistake. You would think the union-busting agent

Mistaking employees for trespassers, and mistaking your own property boundaries, combine to make a fairly large mistake. You would think the union-busting agents they’ve hired would have better intel on this type of thing...

wolverine876 4y ago
Why is it a mistake? They sent an intimidating message, which their targets have helpfully amplified by telling the world: Take on Amazon and they may have you arrested.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  GP was being facetious, showing how ridiculous the OP's claim that this is just Amazon calling the cops to stop trespassers is.
  - dundarious 4y ago
    Yes, exactly. Without any further info, and given the context of union-busting and intel collection especially at this facility, I think it’s unlikely this was a just a dumb mistake, and quite likely it was intimidation, seeking a pretext to fire the employee/organizer.
googlryas 4y ago
"A fairly large mistake" - What do you think the consequences should be for the person who called 911 in this situation?
- dundarious 4y ago
  If it’s a genuine mistake, absolutely nothing. I’m implying that it was far more likely to be intimidation rather than a mistake.
  - oh_sigh 4y ago
    What exactly is intimidating about a sheriff showing up, seeing that everything is okay, and then moving on with their life?
    - dundarious 4y ago
      It seems pretty obvious to me that calling the police on someone for some activity, is intended as a way to stop that activity, potentially by force, and potentially giving a pretext for terminating that employee. The "everything is okay" outcome was not what the caller wanted, and was in no way guaranteed. If you call the police on your neighbors for spurious reasons, and the cops come and discover it was a spurious complaint, your neighbors are going to think you are targeting them and trying to get them in trouble, even if in the end "everything is okay". Especially if you have a cosy relationship with the cops, and you actually own the home your neighbors are renting, for example.
      - googlryas 4y ago
        I think the caller wanted them off Amazon property. And they got that in a sense, because apparently they were never on Amazon property. If you think this was some kind of corporate intimidation, how many people would you guess were involved with the decision? Why isn't Amazon hiring scary bike gangs with plausible deniability to come harass the organizers instead of cops who generally enforce the law? Sorry. But I just can't see it. "We're a trillion dollar organization with hundreds of thousands of employees with global reach. Our preferred intimidation methods involve a bumpkin county sheriff who knows how to enforce the law"
        dundarious 4y ago
        Amazon has literally hired Pinkertons to surveil workers, and they have been accused of retaliatory firings, etc. There's no outlandish or fanciful conspiracy here. Amazon are publicly known to be vehemently anti-union, and executives do encourage local management teams to try to curb union activity as much as possible, and appear to have fired local management at another facility for failing to do so, so the existence of this imperative seems pretty solid: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/technology/amazon-fires-managers-union-staten-island.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/technology/amazon-fires-m... What's likely to have happened is that a person in local management wanted to stop union solicitation, so they called the cops with little regard for whether it was actually legitimate or not, in the hope that the cops might at least recommend the organizer move their activity to a less "aggravating" (i.e., less effective) location.

wolverine876 4y ago

Why is it a mistake? They sent an intimidating message, which their targets have helpfully amplified by telling the world: Take on Amazon and they may have you arrested.

tsimionescu 4y ago
GP was being facetious, showing how ridiculous the OP's claim that this is just Amazon calling the cops to stop trespassers is.
- dundarious 4y ago
  Yes, exactly. Without any further info, and given the context of union-busting and intel collection especially at this facility, I think it’s unlikely this was a just a dumb mistake, and quite likely it was intimidation, seeking a pretext to fire the employee/organizer.

googlryas 4y ago

"A fairly large mistake" - What do you think the consequences should be for the person who called 911 in this situation?

dundarious 4y ago
If it’s a genuine mistake, absolutely nothing. I’m implying that it was far more likely to be intimidation rather than a mistake.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  What exactly is intimidating about a sheriff showing up, seeing that everything is okay, and then moving on with their life?
  - dundarious 4y ago
    It seems pretty obvious to me that calling the police on someone for some activity, is intended as a way to stop that activity, potentially by force, and potentially giving a pretext for terminating that employee. The "everything is okay" outcome was not what the caller wanted, and was in no way guaranteed. If you call the police on your neighbors for spurious reasons, and the cops come and discover it was a spurious complaint, your neighbors are going to think you are targeting them and trying to get them in trouble, even if in the end "everything is okay". Especially if you have a cosy relationship with the cops, and you actually own the home your neighbors are renting, for example.
    - googlryas 4y ago
      I think the caller wanted them off Amazon property. And they got that in a sense, because apparently they were never on Amazon property. If you think this was some kind of corporate intimidation, how many people would you guess were involved with the decision? Why isn't Amazon hiring scary bike gangs with plausible deniability to come harass the organizers instead of cops who generally enforce the law? Sorry. But I just can't see it. "We're a trillion dollar organization with hundreds of thousands of employees with global reach. Our preferred intimidation methods involve a bumpkin county sheriff who knows how to enforce the law"
      - dundarious 4y ago
        Amazon has literally hired Pinkertons to surveil workers, and they have been accused of retaliatory firings, etc. There's no outlandish or fanciful conspiracy here. Amazon are publicly known to be vehemently anti-union, and executives do encourage local management teams to try to curb union activity as much as possible, and appear to have fired local management at another facility for failing to do so, so the existence of this imperative seems pretty solid: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/technology/amazon-fires-managers-union-staten-island.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/06/technology/amazon-fires-m... What's likely to have happened is that a person in local management wanted to stop union solicitation, so they called the cops with little regard for whether it was actually legitimate or not, in the hope that the cops might at least recommend the organizer move their activity to a less "aggravating" (i.e., less effective) location.