4 ms·

Hanging by a Strand: Worker dissent brews at an iconic New York bookstore (2020)

10 points by herbertl 3y ago

kevinwang 3y ago
(2020)
- SiempreViernes 3y ago
  Thanks, knowing it is about a 3 year old labour dispute really makes it much less interesting because they don't tend to stay substantially unchanged for that long.
- herbertl 3y ago
  Added, thanks!
ejb999 3y ago
From the article: "Working in a retail environment, when things are busy, managers will step in and cover a desk while someone goes to a bathroom—things that, if you wanted to be a stickler about it, should be done by union labor, ..." Started out making sure you didn't have to work 7 days a week, 14 hours a day with dangerous equipment - now has become, if you work in a bookstore and you need to use a bathroom for 10 minutes, the only person 'allowed' to cover for you is another union member...good grief. Highlights perfectly why an ever increasing number of folks are anti-union and union enrollment continues to fall in this country.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mft_ 3y ago
  I have no real comment on the wider issues raised in the article, but I agree that this is —at face value— odd. ‘Since the latest layoff, “they’ve been scheduling managers to do things like work a register for hours at a time, sorting and shelving books.” “This is deliberate and systematic,” he continued. “There are days when there are as many managers working on the floor as union workers.”’ Should it not be okay for a business to ask any of its employees to perform a reasonable and safe task for which they’ve been trained?
  - filoleg 3y ago
    > Should it not be okay for a business to ask any of its employees to perform a reasonable and safe task for which they’ve been trained? Apparently, according to one of the replies in this thread, it is “self-peasantisation”. They would rather prohibit people that are already employed by the business and trained to do those tasks from doing those tasks, because they are not in a union, so the business could hire union people instead to do those tasks.
    - mft_ 3y ago
      Different strokes for different folks, I guess :) I find a 'standard' 13" (as on an older Macbook Air, for example, which I think is technically 13.3" and 16:10?) a bit too claustrophobic for anything creative - either due to apps needing toolbars, or my workflow needing multiple windows accessible (e.g. coding, with VSCode, a shell or two, and a browser for docs and StackOverflow). A 15" (which I have now) is nice to work with, but then the laptop becomes a touch too heavy for travelling comfort (unless this is something you specifically optimise for when buying e.g. [0] - but then there are other tradeoffs). Thus I wonder if a 14-14.5" with minimal bezels, set in a lightweight chassis similar to a traditional 13" (see how big the bezels are on an older Macbook Air, for example - lots of space for a larger screen without unduly enlarging the chassis) might not be a sweet spot? [0] https://www.lg.com/de/notebooks/gram/15z90rt-g-aa78g/ https://www.lg.com/de/notebooks/gram/15z90rt-g-aa78g/
      - filoleg 3y ago
        You clearly replied in an entirely wrong thread, but I upvoted because your reply was pretty interesting. Out of curiosity, what was the comment that you were originally intending to reply to?
        mft_ 3y ago
        It was this little chain in the Framework 16 discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39105227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39105227 Thanks for the flag - I've moved my comment there too :)
refulgentis 3y ago
> “There are days when there are as many managers working on the floor as union workers.” > "Bass Wyden has cleared her business almost entirely of the layer of upper management that once stood between her and the union." Separated by 3 sentences. There's a few people choosing to be obtuse in the comments ("the only person 'allowed' to cover for you is another union member": correct, because otherwise it's an ersatz way to break a union) or obtuse and offensive ("soft, entitled people deserve to have their jobs taken by machines and immigrants") That's self-peasantization. But I gotta treat the article like advocacy fanfic if it's going to whiplash me from "there's a 1:1 ratio of management:line worker somedays" and "the owner systemically removed the management layer between her and the line workers" in 3 sentences.
- filoleg 3y ago
  > There's a few people choosing to be obtuse in the comments ("the only person 'allowed' to cover for you is another union member": correct, because otherwise it's an ersatz way to break a union) I will take a bite. How is it being obtuse? Sure, you can call it as a way to break union. That doesn’t change the fact that this sounds like a ridiculous and inefficient setup, because it is. If your defense for a silly workplace setup is “that silly setup is to avoid union-breaking, because if we didn’t have that silly setup, that would be union-breaking”, it isn’t as strong of a defense as you think. If anything, it is pretty much the perfect ammo for anti-union sentiments. Because you are essentially saying that those inefficiencies and silly setups are required for unionized workplaces (similar to the one in the OP, not talking about film or athlete or police unions) to continue existing.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    Thanks for biting (?) TL;DR: it's a multi-turn game. If this wasn't a provision, you could just hire N=X employees to replace the X employees that unionized, then lay off the unionized employees. This used to happen, hence why it's a standard provision in collective bargaining. It's inefficient if you fire employees en masse. (the particulars in the article are quite damning re: firing en masse, receive PPP loan to not fire, then stonks)

10 points by herbertl 3y ago

kevinwang 3y ago

(2020)

SiempreViernes 3y ago
Thanks, knowing it is about a 3 year old labour dispute really makes it much less interesting because they don't tend to stay substantially unchanged for that long.
herbertl 3y ago
Added, thanks!

ejb999 3y ago

From the article: "Working in a retail environment, when things are busy, managers will step in and cover a desk while someone goes to a bathroom—things that, if you wanted to be a stickler about it, should be done by union labor, ..." Started out making sure you didn't have to work 7 days a week, 14 hours a day with dangerous equipment - now has become, if you work in a bookstore and you need to use a bathroom for 10 minutes, the only person 'allowed' to cover for you is another union member...good grief. Highlights perfectly why an ever increasing number of folks are anti-union and union enrollment continues to fall in this country.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mft_ 3y ago
I have no real comment on the wider issues raised in the article, but I agree that this is —at face value— odd. ‘Since the latest layoff, “they’ve been scheduling managers to do things like work a register for hours at a time, sorting and shelving books.” “This is deliberate and systematic,” he continued. “There are days when there are as many managers working on the floor as union workers.”’ Should it not be okay for a business to ask any of its employees to perform a reasonable and safe task for which they’ve been trained?
- filoleg 3y ago
  > Should it not be okay for a business to ask any of its employees to perform a reasonable and safe task for which they’ve been trained? Apparently, according to one of the replies in this thread, it is “self-peasantisation”. They would rather prohibit people that are already employed by the business and trained to do those tasks from doing those tasks, because they are not in a union, so the business could hire union people instead to do those tasks.
  - mft_ 3y ago
    Different strokes for different folks, I guess :) I find a 'standard' 13" (as on an older Macbook Air, for example, which I think is technically 13.3" and 16:10?) a bit too claustrophobic for anything creative - either due to apps needing toolbars, or my workflow needing multiple windows accessible (e.g. coding, with VSCode, a shell or two, and a browser for docs and StackOverflow). A 15" (which I have now) is nice to work with, but then the laptop becomes a touch too heavy for travelling comfort (unless this is something you specifically optimise for when buying e.g. [0] - but then there are other tradeoffs). Thus I wonder if a 14-14.5" with minimal bezels, set in a lightweight chassis similar to a traditional 13" (see how big the bezels are on an older Macbook Air, for example - lots of space for a larger screen without unduly enlarging the chassis) might not be a sweet spot? [0] https://www.lg.com/de/notebooks/gram/15z90rt-g-aa78g/ https://www.lg.com/de/notebooks/gram/15z90rt-g-aa78g/
    - filoleg 3y ago
      You clearly replied in an entirely wrong thread, but I upvoted because your reply was pretty interesting. Out of curiosity, what was the comment that you were originally intending to reply to?
      - mft_ 3y ago
        It was this little chain in the Framework 16 discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39105227 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39105227 Thanks for the flag - I've moved my comment there too :)

refulgentis 3y ago

> “There are days when there are as many managers working on the floor as union workers.” > "Bass Wyden has cleared her business almost entirely of the layer of upper management that once stood between her and the union." Separated by 3 sentences. There's a few people choosing to be obtuse in the comments ("the only person 'allowed' to cover for you is another union member": correct, because otherwise it's an ersatz way to break a union) or obtuse and offensive ("soft, entitled people deserve to have their jobs taken by machines and immigrants") That's self-peasantization. But I gotta treat the article like advocacy fanfic if it's going to whiplash me from "there's a 1:1 ratio of management:line worker somedays" and "the owner systemically removed the management layer between her and the line workers" in 3 sentences.

filoleg 3y ago
> There's a few people choosing to be obtuse in the comments ("the only person 'allowed' to cover for you is another union member": correct, because otherwise it's an ersatz way to break a union) I will take a bite. How is it being obtuse? Sure, you can call it as a way to break union. That doesn’t change the fact that this sounds like a ridiculous and inefficient setup, because it is. If your defense for a silly workplace setup is “that silly setup is to avoid union-breaking, because if we didn’t have that silly setup, that would be union-breaking”, it isn’t as strong of a defense as you think. If anything, it is pretty much the perfect ammo for anti-union sentiments. Because you are essentially saying that those inefficiencies and silly setups are required for unionized workplaces (similar to the one in the OP, not talking about film or athlete or police unions) to continue existing.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  Thanks for biting (?) TL;DR: it's a multi-turn game. If this wasn't a provision, you could just hire N=X employees to replace the X employees that unionized, then lay off the unionized employees. This used to happen, hence why it's a standard provision in collective bargaining. It's inefficient if you fire employees en masse. (the particulars in the article are quite damning re: firing en masse, receive PPP loan to not fire, then stonks)