4 ms·

Also, choosing a critical period like just before Xmas has the effect of making the protest look like ransom

by BitMastro 13y ago

randallsquared 13y ago
Maybe that's the only time they have leverage.
dmoo 13y ago
How else would they make Amazon care?
vkou 13y ago
Whereas "Accept our terms of employment or starve," isn't?
- aggronn 13y ago
  You're implying that Amazon has a de facto monopoly on available jobs.
  - vkou 13y ago
    The parent comment implied that their workers have a de facto monopoly on filling boxes. Which is indeed the case in the short term. However, quitting your job means not making your rent payment for a quarter of America, so the analogy still holds. Management bargains collectively - why can't their employees do likewise?
    - philwelch 13y ago
      Management bargains collectively? I don't think so. That would be considered anti-competitive, like when Apple and Google had a no-poaching agreement.
      - vkou 13y ago
        Perhaps I misused the word 'collectively' - but notice that this is a strike by Amazon workers in Germany, as opposed to all warehouse workers in Germany. Inside the company, management's position is highly collective. Owners expend significant resources to get the best possible deal on what they have to pay their employees - resources that are beyond the reach of an individual employee. For jobs like this, it imposes pay grades across the entire warehouse floor - as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. It only makes sense that employees should organize their own advocacy groups.
eplanit 13y ago
That's very typical for unions. This is also the time of year for hotel unions to act against their employer and customers in order to demand more. In San Fran the hotel union employees will conduct noisy picketing demonstrations at 6 a.m. I guess it's a universal tactic for unions. The BART union held the Bay Area hostage twice this year.
- vkou 13y ago
  If BART is that important to the bay area, perhaps the people working for it should get paid more? I mean, most of us don't go to work out of charity.
  - sparky 13y ago
    This sounds like you're advocating a free market approach in this case, where BART employee wages should rise until their employer can no longer operate. As in other markets, the sticky part is switching costs; one big reason employees have leverage in situations like this is that the employer can't practically fire everyone and have equally trained workers the next day. The employer then has to weigh the cost of increased wages vs. the economic harm that would be done if the business were to shut down while they found and trained new workers. For unspecialized positions, a worker's leverage is proportional to that economic harm, not that worker's skill, or length of service, or particular suitability to the job vs. someone else. The economic harm is proportional to the economic value which was created by others, often including the public at large (e.g., power plants and transportation systems exist by laws and permits that essentially divide up natural resources owned by everyone). A moral opposition to leveraging the efforts and resources of others to enrich your own bargaining position ('hostage-taking' in anti-union parlance) is the counterargument to 'perhaps they should get paid more if the BART is so important'. Obviously there's some middle ground here between abusive behavior on either side of a labor dispute. One idea to reach it is for both sides to have more alternatives/lower switching costs (make it more socially acceptable for workers to look for contingency jobs while already employed, and for employers to train backup workers while the positions are already nominally filled).
  - qq66 13y ago
sliverstorm 13y ago
That's how strikes have always worked. You hold the productivity of the factory at ransom. In this case, it's an especially steep ransom.
mrweasel 13y ago
>in a dispute over pay and conditions that has raged for months Amazon could have dealt with this way in advance of christmas. What did they honestly expect would happen?

Also, choosing a critical period like just before Xmas has the effect of making the protest look like ransom

randallsquared 13y ago

Maybe that's the only time they have leverage.

dmoo 13y ago

How else would they make Amazon care?

vkou 13y ago

Whereas "Accept our terms of employment or starve," isn't?

aggronn 13y ago
You're implying that Amazon has a de facto monopoly on available jobs.
- vkou 13y ago
  The parent comment implied that their workers have a de facto monopoly on filling boxes. Which is indeed the case in the short term. However, quitting your job means not making your rent payment for a quarter of America, so the analogy still holds. Management bargains collectively - why can't their employees do likewise?
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Management bargains collectively? I don't think so. That would be considered anti-competitive, like when Apple and Google had a no-poaching agreement.
    - vkou 13y ago
      Perhaps I misused the word 'collectively' - but notice that this is a strike by Amazon workers in Germany, as opposed to all warehouse workers in Germany. Inside the company, management's position is highly collective. Owners expend significant resources to get the best possible deal on what they have to pay their employees - resources that are beyond the reach of an individual employee. For jobs like this, it imposes pay grades across the entire warehouse floor - as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. It only makes sense that employees should organize their own advocacy groups.

eplanit 13y ago

That's very typical for unions. This is also the time of year for hotel unions to act against their employer and customers in order to demand more. In San Fran the hotel union employees will conduct noisy picketing demonstrations at 6 a.m. I guess it's a universal tactic for unions. The BART union held the Bay Area hostage twice this year.

vkou 13y ago
If BART is that important to the bay area, perhaps the people working for it should get paid more? I mean, most of us don't go to work out of charity.
- sparky 13y ago
  This sounds like you're advocating a free market approach in this case, where BART employee wages should rise until their employer can no longer operate. As in other markets, the sticky part is switching costs; one big reason employees have leverage in situations like this is that the employer can't practically fire everyone and have equally trained workers the next day. The employer then has to weigh the cost of increased wages vs. the economic harm that would be done if the business were to shut down while they found and trained new workers. For unspecialized positions, a worker's leverage is proportional to that economic harm, not that worker's skill, or length of service, or particular suitability to the job vs. someone else. The economic harm is proportional to the economic value which was created by others, often including the public at large (e.g., power plants and transportation systems exist by laws and permits that essentially divide up natural resources owned by everyone). A moral opposition to leveraging the efforts and resources of others to enrich your own bargaining position ('hostage-taking' in anti-union parlance) is the counterargument to 'perhaps they should get paid more if the BART is so important'. Obviously there's some middle ground here between abusive behavior on either side of a labor dispute. One idea to reach it is for both sides to have more alternatives/lower switching costs (make it more socially acceptable for workers to look for contingency jobs while already employed, and for employers to train backup workers while the positions are already nominally filled).
- qq66 13y ago

sliverstorm 13y ago

That's how strikes have always worked. You hold the productivity of the factory at ransom. In this case, it's an especially steep ransom.

mrweasel 13y ago

>in a dispute over pay and conditions that has raged for months Amazon could have dealt with this way in advance of christmas. What did they honestly expect would happen?