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Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards
- stevespang 4y ago
- ervine 4y agoWhy is stevespang's comment flagged as dead?
- tjoff 4y agoShadowbanned, seemed excessive to me. I vouched for it at least.
- capableweb 4y agoI agree with the comment that Amazon is fucking nasty, but I don't think a comment just stating that is adding a lot to the conversation. More well thought out comments are usually more interesting, so I'd downvote it myself for that, even though I do agree with the sentiment.
- maybeiambatman 4y agoHow do legislators just allow this? Isn't this cut and dry illegal?
- Synaesthesia 4y agoBecause legislators historically are less interested in corporate/white collar crime.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- coldpie 4y agoIt's a huge grey area, largely up to the NLRB to decide when anti-union campaigners cross the line. They did similar tactics in the Alabama vote and were slapped for that behavior[1], and many other infractions, with an order to re-do the vote[2]. Amazon's execs and lawyers clearly think they have enough to lose (and their workers to gain) that it's worth finding exactly where the line is. --- [1] "The [NLRB] hearing officer also found objectionable Amazon's distribution of "vote no" pins and other anti-organizing paraphernalia to employees in the presence of managers and supervisors. ... U.S. labor law forbids companies from spying on organizing activities or leaving employees with the impression they are under surveillance. It also prohibits other actions if they are found to be coercive." https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-interfered-with-union-elections-says-us-labor-board-2021-08-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-interfered-with-unio... [2] https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1022384731/amazon-warehouse-workers-get-to-re-do-their-union-vote-in-alabama https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1022384731/amazon-warehouse-w...
- ixwt 4y agoIf I hazarded a guess, this might have not gone through their legal department first.
- sp332 4y agoThey've hired a bunch of outside agencies to help union-busting. My guess is that it came from one of them, and that Amazon will sue them for whatever damages are caused by this.
- noisy_boy 4y ago> The ALU may ask you to sign an authorization card or share a QR code to fill out an online authorization card. > This is a legally binding document Ooh scary ... is the employment contract signed by Amazon's employees not legally binding? How is it Amazon's business what their grown-ass employees can or cannot sign? > By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form, you are providing the ALU your personal information. Like Amazon monitoring my spending habits? > By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form, you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf. And thats terrible how? > The ALU is not part of Amazon and does not represent Amazon Thats the whole point.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wahnfrieden 4y agoobviously amazon doesn't have a real case against unions, but they can try to use scary language to confuse people
- _jal 4y ago"This will go down on your permanent record..." -- Bezos in helium voice I remember quitting from Krogers bagging groceries when I was a kid. I forget why, but I did give less than 2 weeks notice. Mr. Manager gravely conveyed that if I did this, I'd be barred from working for them again forever. Pretty sure my poker face then was not what it is now, but in any case I did not find that to be anywhere nearly as distressing as he seemed to think I should.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoI wish r/kroger and r/antiwork would intersect more, it's so sad to see the experiences people post in the former
- runnerup 4y agor/antiwork is propaganda and true-believers amplifying that propaganda. r/Kroger and r/Walmart are real people just trying to deal with life as best they can.
- designium 4y ago"We care about your privacy but not your rights." "Please suffer privately on your own."
- photochemsyn 4y agoRealistically an Amazon-wide union is the only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases. If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China, without having any cross-border capital flow penalities (neoliberal globalism in a nutshell), then the major employers like Amazon and Walmart are going to have to double their wages. Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
- rapnie 4y ago> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Unrealistic, in neoliberalism.
- ch4s3 4y agoThis doesn’t mean anything. Markets mature and margins decline. All firms have to compete for labor, and the market for labor has tightened. However during an inflationary environment it’s pretty easy to raise prices. They’ll eventually build higher labor costs into their financial projects and pass along some of the costs. Shareholders probably won’t care much, because Amazon is still a good investment.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear. Based on retail business profit margins, it would mean higher prices for customers. Not that that is a bad thing, less consumption would be great.
- Retric 4y agoCompetition limits how much they could raise prices, automation and efficiency increases are needed to compete.
- 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- capableweb 4y agomrits: "You guys love the police union too, right? Right???" The general idea, yeah. It proves how strong a union can be. The implementation? No. A union for people who have monopoly on violence? No. A union that protects people who are actively hurting civilians without recourse? No.
- jimnotgym 4y agoIn the UK the police are neither allowed to form a union or strike.
- denton-scratch 4y agoThey have a union: The Police Federation. It's true the police in the UK are not allowed to strike.
- iasay 4y agoWe just have the masons instead which spans the police, CPS and the entire rest of the legal system. Been burned big time by that.
- jstanley 4y agoHow can you ban people from going on strike? The entire point of a strike is that you're not working when you're supposed to be.
- bombcar 4y agoYou make it illegal to negotiate based on work stoppages, to plan a strike, or otherwise conspire to strike. And you permanently fire those who do. It happened to air traffic controllers in the US.
- kqr 4y agoHow to ban people in general from striking is easy: you just call the cops on them. How to prevent the cops from striking I don't know...
- 4y ago
- oldjavacoder 4y ago
- willyt 4y agoA union is just a way to make a multilateral contract negotiation between one huge party and hundreds of thousands of very small parties into a bi-lateral contract negotiation between two equals, it’s a completely rational negotiating tactic in a pure capitalist system and it can only be prevented by restricting basic human rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of contract and the right to live without fear of violence.
- bombcar 4y agoThe union just makes two huge parties, neither of which the employee has much choice about.
- coldpie 4y agoMost unions that have survived 40 years of anti worker propaganda are huge, yes. But they don't have to be. One thing I'm hoping comes out of this recent union revival is an exploration of different union types and sizes, to find new models that work well.
- bombcar 4y agoIt's amusing to me that unions complain about outsourcing as they themselves outsource all their work to some mega-union.
- mhoad 4y agoYou seem to be rather confused about how unions actually work, this is one of many comments from you in this thread that kind of reads like you got all of your exposure to unions from a Ben Shapiro video or something.
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
- yardie 4y ago> By signing a card or filling out an online authorization form, you are authorizing the ALU to speak on your behalf. Yeah, they were great at listening before. Also, where are these unions where the people in it aren't the people it represents. Recently, a school board election ad, "we have to stop the teachers union and start listening to teachers." Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?
- Anderkent 4y ago> Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers? well, union higher-ups are basically politicians, they're not usually working in the job by that point
- ravel-bar-foo 4y agoLarger unions sometimes hire staff to represent their interests who are do not work in the profession represented: negotiators, lawyers, etc. It sets up a bit of a principle/agent problem, but it also makes a lot of sense: a professional lawyer may be much better at negotiating on your behalf than the people from your profession who win the union elections.
- formerly_proven 4y agoAt least in theory unions have the correct incentive structure, as they get a fixed percentage of their member's incomes, so to get more money from their members, they need to negotiate better salaries for them.
- gruez 4y agoExcept unions aren't for-profit, so it's unclear where those extra money is going to. Senior leadership perhaps? But unions beholden to members, which means there's no "fixed percentage", because that's decided by the members themselves. We can see a parallel in public sector compensation: democratically controlled organizations are very reluctant to spend extra money on compensating leadership (or any other high paying staff, for that matter).
- tus666 4y ago
- rideontime 4y ago
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoCare to explain your reasoning?
- JWlrCk9PkipFTDq 4y agoOK I'll bite - why?
- bombcar 4y agoIf I were to try to guess, it's that it forces political cooperation on people under threat of not having a job. Imagine the situation where every single company in your state is a union shop (you have to join the union and pay dues if you work) - and every single union is wildly pro-gun, supporting candidates who want everyone to carry two guns (but they'll compromise to only men and only one if pushed). So to live and work, your money has to go to support that. If you were anti-gun, you'd probably feel a bit annoyed.
- AdrianB1 4y agoI live in a country (Romania) with almost no legal guns, so I am missing some context. I thought that with the USA constitution guns are a right that "shall not be infringed", so what exactly "anti-gun" means: changing the constitution or ignoring it? Most of the news I see, people are trying to ignore it, which is basically ignoring the laws. In this case, Amazon breaking some laws seems to fit well in the picture.
- bombcar 4y agoIt's an attempt to pick an example that "works" - most people on HN will not be sad that the union supports a political party, because it's the party they also support.
- crikeyjoe 4y ago
- pxeger1 4y agoOk, lesson learnt: don't read the comments on any HN story about unions.
- blamazon 4y agoUnions and bicycling are two topics that I rarely enjoy reading HN comments about, but here I am.
- Starlevel001 4y agoWhy are you surprised that Reddit for Bosses is against unions?
- s0l1dsnak3123 4y agoIt's lovely to see so much solidarity on this subject from HN. A lot of people are fed up right now, and they're very much justified.
- 0n0n0m0uz 4y agoPeople nowadays have no memory of the decades of struggle, sacrifice to win the rights we currently have. Unions are the most effective tool the working class has to affect change where they spend a majority of their waking life. No wonder why its demonized at every possible instance.
- thepasswordis 4y agoStrong unions certainly did wonderful things for the working class people of Detroit, Michigan.
- pastacacioepepe 4y agoUnions can be corrupted or do mistakes, and sometimes unions are not powerful enough in the face of global market shifts. That doesn't mean unions are bad or useless. It would be like saying that since democratic governments can be corrupted, we should do without democracy.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoThat analogy is poor because we don’t know of a good alternative to democratic governments. But there is an obvious alternative to unions that many workers do prefer.
- pastacacioepepe 4y agoAnd they can still choose it, since unions are not compulsory as far as I know? So what are we discussing about?
- seabird 4y agoNot necessarily. Unions can and do negotiate terms that protect union members to ridiculous extents at the cost of making what is basically an underclass out of non-union employees and employees of other unions. You'll find terms that limit certain scopes of work exclusively to employees of a certain union, and even employees of that union with a certain standing within it. Some of this work is gravy train shit that you'll never get to see if you're not in the union or not in the right union. In some unions, working non-union jobs can result in repeating fees for the length of time you do it. Do it long enough and you'll be so far in the hole that you'll effectively never be able to pay it back, you'll never be in good standing, and you'll join the rest of the employees outside of your union that can't draw crazy high pay for very easy work.
- justinzollars 4y agoIf you really cared, cancel your amazon accounts. 148 Prime users upvoted this article.
- carbadtraingood 4y agoI did, during the initial union busting efforts. Surprisingly easy to get by without prime. Until Amazon can start treating workers well, it seems to me the best move is not to pay them to abuse people.
- bamboozled 4y agoCan't we have prime and have people paid sufficiently too?
- SyzygistSix 4y agoPerhaps we can. It is certainly easy enough to both cancel Prime service and to resubscribe to it.
- bamboozled 4y agoIf Amazon wasn't such scum, I'd spend a lot more with them...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- darepublic 4y agoI've been in unions in some really shitty jobs; where I assume the union had no power.
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- laweijfmvo 4y agoNo doubt that Amazon is being scummy here, but you can’t quote someone/something and put a phrase (“don’t sign”) in quotations unless it’s a direct quote…
- d1sxeyes 4y agoThe article has a photo of a slide with the words “don’t sign” on it at the top.
- laweijfmvo 4y agocan’t believe i missed that after scrolling through all the images. how do i downvote myself. this should be illegal.
- d1sxeyes 4y agoIf you’re talking about instructing people not to sign, then (as far as I can tell) it is. If you’re talking about missing the slide title, don’t be so hard on yourself, mistakes happen.
- alexnewman 4y agoI’m amazed , with the history, lack of progress, and violence committed by unions, that anyone would ever join one. This ain’t Germany
- ozzythecat 4y agoI was with Amazon working in tech for over 10 years. I lost control of my health, my hair turned white, and during that time I lost most of my friends. It’s obviously my own fault for letting all that happen. Of all the companies in the world, Amazon is probably one of the coldest, soulless places. Management is riddled with politics and third rate talent who’ll often knowingly do the wrong thing, just to get promoted. The people who actually drove the innovation, who weren’t necessary easier to work with but at least had some technical vision and production vision have all left. A significant piece of the company is all just legacy systems and tech debt, supported by Indian H1Bs who hire more H1Bs. If the government breaks up AWS and the rest of Amazon, most of their domains won’t make business sense anymore. There are too many middle men who are against this though - everyone from companies that help people relocate, to vendors that provide special tax services for the H1B army. I hope Amazon fully unionizes. Even in tech, it was a grueling, toxic place to work.
- the_only_law 4y agoApparently even that's not working, give they still spam people that other FAANGs would never touch.
- tomohawk 4y agoUnions love card check instead of secret ballots. It's a great intimidation tool.