Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards(engadget.com)
engadget.com
Amazon instructs New York workers “don't sign” union cards
https://www.engadget.com/amazon-alb-1-anti-union-signage-alu-004207814.html
401 comments
"How can we make the mundane and expected sound eeeeeeevil and dangerous?"
But did they cross state lines?
Ironically, he didn’t even cross state lines (at least not that night), he was there the night before sleeping over at a friend’s house.
[deleted]
What are you taking about?
From context, I assume an incident involving someone crossing state lines or not to recruit Union members, which has relevant implications for which laws and legal jurisdictions are applicable.
No, it’s about a recent, popular self-defense case in which many people wanted the victim to be found guilty, and they would talk about how he “crossed state lines” as though crossing state lines was some ominous, evil thing. This “crossed state lines” rhetoric was even parroted by the media, and eventually it became a meme as people used it sarcastically.
Crossing state lines really does have certain jurisdiction / formal legal implications. In particular it upgrades the matter from state to the federal judicial system, which usually entails higher stakes for the defendant. If some group wants to see a particular individual punished for whatever reason, then naturally they would want him to have tripped over the technicality that would make his situation far worse. It has nothing to do with crossing the state line being a heinous act in itself.
I nailed everything from context except the particular crime being alluded to.
I nailed everything from context except the particular crime being alluded to.
Transporting weapons or controlled substances over state lines has legal implications, but not in a murder/self-defense trial. The “crossed state lines” was just a fall-back to make it sound like the victim did something abhorrent or went well out of his way to get into trouble.
after gpt-3, i always just assume these sorts of comments are autogenerated. :)
[deleted]
They’re transparently trying to exploit people not knowing any better and being horribly afraid about losing their jobs in a recessing economy. It’s despicable.
If ALU gets over 50% of employees to sign the card, they can bypass a vote and declare themselves the union and petition for recognition of such to the NLRB (which will grant it unless Amazon can demonstrate malfeasance somehow). It’s a common tactic by unions and a common response by employers is to carefully but thoroughly explain this tactic to employees—-which they’re allowed to do, but it’s totally illegal to say “DON’T SIGN THE CARD” so it’s a tightrope to walk. When it happened at a facility at which I worked, the HR director read a script, showed a video, took no questions, and videotaped the entire thing to ensure that he could prove it was done legally.
Of course, this is Amazon we’re talking about, so they may just go for it and plan to clean up the mess later. Walmart got away with that approach for decades.
Of course, this is Amazon we’re talking about, so they may just go for it and plan to clean up the mess later. Walmart got away with that approach for decades.
Yeah, if they can get 50% of employees on legal record saying they support the union, it is obvious that they don't need an election.
Your language, IMO, is value-laden. Card-signing is a common "tactic" for unions like the presidential election is a "tactic" for deciding the next president.
Your language, IMO, is value-laden. Card-signing is a common "tactic" for unions like the presidential election is a "tactic" for deciding the next president.
Election votes are anonymous by nature. Card signing is not.
I'm not opposed to unionizing but I take issue with the idea that getting 50% support means "it is obvious that they don't need an election."
I'm not opposed to unionizing but I take issue with the idea that getting 50% support means "it is obvious that they don't need an election."
It seems like you’re saying the lack of anonymity will inflate support for a union. I.e. organizers will be able to pressure people who would otherwise vote no on a union. Frankly, I’d be worried about the opposite. Knowing how aggressively amazon is fighting unions, if I worked there i’d hesitate to put my name down on paper - when I wouldn’t hesitate to vote in a secret ballot. If that’s the case, 50% support implies a stronger majority.
Maybe that’s not always the case, but that’s what I’d guess is happening in this case.
Maybe that’s not always the case, but that’s what I’d guess is happening in this case.
Historically, there have been times when intimidation came from the union. There have also been times when intimidation came from management. So, yeah. Secret ballot.
> People call the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election system a secret ballot election—but in fact it's not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. It's really a management-controlled election process because corporations have all the power. They control the information workers can receive and routinely poison the process by intimidating, harassing, coercing and even firing people who try to organize unions.
(via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check)
Without reforming the secret ballot process, you’re just handing power to the companies by advocating against card-checks
(via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_check)
Without reforming the secret ballot process, you’re just handing power to the companies by advocating against card-checks
(That quote comes from the AFL-CIO, not Wikipedia editors, for the curious.)
Almost put that in, but it seemed like it was clear from the tone that it’s a quote. If that felt misleading I apologize
There have indeed, historically, been cases where a union threw its weight around, bullied, and abused people.
However, a huge percentage of companies today are actively doing these things to their workers, and if you selected 10 companies at random where there were unionization efforts, I'd bet you money that in at least 9 of them, management was doing everything they could legally, and probably some things that are questionable or outright illegal, to try to prevent unionization.
Stop the "both sides"-ism. It's disingenuous and detrimental to genuine understanding of the situation.
However, a huge percentage of companies today are actively doing these things to their workers, and if you selected 10 companies at random where there were unionization efforts, I'd bet you money that in at least 9 of them, management was doing everything they could legally, and probably some things that are questionable or outright illegal, to try to prevent unionization.
Stop the "both sides"-ism. It's disingenuous and detrimental to genuine understanding of the situation.
The vast majority of union elections result in more votes for the union than cards signed. It is extremely rare for the number of cards signed to be a higher share than the vote.
Probably both! That's why we shouldn't guess, and votes are secret for a reason.
Ah yes, let’s make a rule that makes a difficult process (unionization) for a vulnerable group (workers) more difficult, based on a vague theory about imagined pressure being applied. Sounds like solid reasoning to me.
I am 100% behind Amazon employees unionizing, and I wish unionization was far more widespread. I wasn’t trying to impugn unions using the legitimate process to achieve legitimate ends.
That is simply not true. That could be the case in the near future (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/how-the-nlr...) but it is simply not true now. Amazon can always force a vote if 50% of members of the unit sign a card.
I mean, yeah. We don’t have to pretend it’s in good faith. This is obviously calibrated to make the union card sound as scary as possible while (they hope) stopping just short of being illegal interference.
obviously amazon doesn't have a real case against unions, but they can try to use scary language to confuse people
"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.
-- 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.
Earlier in my life I nearly died driving 50 miles to get into work as a grocery store clerk on no sleep because a manager called me and in no uncertain terms told me if I didn’t come in that day I’d be fired.
I was raised to believe that a job is more important than just about anything, so I decided to try to go in as I was out of town. I crashed my car as I fell asleep at the wheel. It shouldn’t take that to get someone to realize the relative unimportance of a job, but the US culture (as channeled through my conservative parents, at least) doesn’t value anything higher than work and productivity in the service of capital as this deified virtue.
I was raised to believe that a job is more important than just about anything, so I decided to try to go in as I was out of town. I crashed my car as I fell asleep at the wheel. It shouldn’t take that to get someone to realize the relative unimportance of a job, but the US culture (as channeled through my conservative parents, at least) doesn’t value anything higher than work and productivity in the service of capital as this deified virtue.
thanks for sharing, I'm glad you survived to learn that lesson
I wish r/kroger and r/antiwork would intersect more, it's so sad to see the experiences people post in the former
r/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.
r/Kroger and r/Walmart are real people just trying to deal with life as best they can.
Can you explain why it’s propaganda and who would be behind this? Always interesting in how to better spot these things.
I'm not sure what point they're making, looks like they don't like encouraging workers to organize (or with specific tactics) based on the below
wahnfrieden(2)
that lifetime ban on working for the Krogers may have represented a much bigger threat to Mr. Manager than it ever would to you
pmc and workers aren't allies
> pmc and workers aren’t allies
The so-called “professional managerial class” is (1) not a class, and (2) a grouping that cuts across the proletariat and petit bourgeiosie (and is largely contained within the intelligentsia component of those classes.)
(Its basically an American-Left resurrection of the Leninist critique of the behavior of the intelligentsia, divorced from the theory in which that critique was grounded which recognized that the intelligentsia were not a genuine classes because their relation to the economy was predominantly as wage labor hired by capital–and thus proletarian–but occasionally petit bourgeois; its kind of weird that its invocation seemed to fade after the 1970s but has become popular again in the last few years.)
The so-called “professional managerial class” is (1) not a class, and (2) a grouping that cuts across the proletariat and petit bourgeiosie (and is largely contained within the intelligentsia component of those classes.)
(Its basically an American-Left resurrection of the Leninist critique of the behavior of the intelligentsia, divorced from the theory in which that critique was grounded which recognized that the intelligentsia were not a genuine classes because their relation to the economy was predominantly as wage labor hired by capital–and thus proletarian–but occasionally petit bourgeois; its kind of weird that its invocation seemed to fade after the 1970s but has become popular again in the last few years.)
PMC is pretty much exclusively bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie.
The exercise of control over capital/means of production (what defines PMC) isnt exactly the same thing as ownership but it's closer to that than only being able to offer labor.
It's not uncommon for it to be better. PMCs (e.g. C level execs) of major corporations a often make out better than shareholders.
The exercise of control over capital/means of production (what defines PMC) isnt exactly the same thing as ownership but it's closer to that than only being able to offer labor.
It's not uncommon for it to be better. PMCs (e.g. C level execs) of major corporations a often make out better than shareholders.
> PMC is pretty much exclusively bourgeoisie and petit bourgeoisie
As usually defined (where by the 2010s it accounted for more than a third of American jobs), it's not. It's mostly proletarians, a bit of it is in the petit bourgeois, and a numerically irrelevant or even smaller numerically irrelevant slice is in the haut bourgeoisie (it's not clear to me if the upper end of the usual understanding includes the haut bourgeois who incidentally have the kind of job usually ascribed to the “class” but for whom it is not particular job reflects rather than is in any way necessary to the power they exercise over capital, but it makes little difference either way.)
The whole purpose of the designation, within Leftist discourse, is to identify and growing (even at the time first identified) segment of the wage-labor force as class enemies of the proletariat by inventing a new class label to apply to them, so as to justify why they aren't targets for solidarity efforts.
> PMCs (e.g. C level execs) of major corporations a often make out better than shareholders.
C-level execs of major corps aren't typical members of the PMC “class” by a long shot.
As usually defined (where by the 2010s it accounted for more than a third of American jobs), it's not. It's mostly proletarians, a bit of it is in the petit bourgeois, and a numerically irrelevant or even smaller numerically irrelevant slice is in the haut bourgeoisie (it's not clear to me if the upper end of the usual understanding includes the haut bourgeois who incidentally have the kind of job usually ascribed to the “class” but for whom it is not particular job reflects rather than is in any way necessary to the power they exercise over capital, but it makes little difference either way.)
The whole purpose of the designation, within Leftist discourse, is to identify and growing (even at the time first identified) segment of the wage-labor force as class enemies of the proletariat by inventing a new class label to apply to them, so as to justify why they aren't targets for solidarity efforts.
> PMCs (e.g. C level execs) of major corporations a often make out better than shareholders.
C-level execs of major corps aren't typical members of the PMC “class” by a long shot.
this was a pretty interesting recent read on pmc https://www.amazon.ca/Virtue-Hoarders-against-Professional-M...
Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class - University of Minnesota Press
Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class - University of Minnesota Press
How are private military contractors related to Kroger workers, and why are they expected (or not) to be allies in the first place?
Professional-managerial class. Basically people with white collar jobs who have more sway than the working class due to professional moats (university degrees, accreditations) and more influence on society due to controlling to some degree how capital is deployed.
The point here is that getting blacklisted is probably a much scarier prospect for the manager. PMC jobs typically have more stringent reference checks and employment history requirements. Meanwhile a low-wage grocery store clerk is going to have no trouble finding another shitty job. Typical minimum wage jobs just want someone who will show up and doesn't have a criminal record.
The point here is that getting blacklisted is probably a much scarier prospect for the manager. PMC jobs typically have more stringent reference checks and employment history requirements. Meanwhile a low-wage grocery store clerk is going to have no trouble finding another shitty job. Typical minimum wage jobs just want someone who will show up and doesn't have a criminal record.
Ah, makes sense, thanks for clarifying. I was suspecting that it wasn't referring to private military contractors here, but googling didn't net much in terms of an alternative that would fit there.
pro managerial class
xhkkffbf(2)
[deleted]
What employment contract? They’re at will
> What employment contract? They’re at will
Despite the colloquial use of the word "contract," there is generally always going to be an employment contract (agreement) in place.
Similarly, people colloquially talk about having a "contract" for things like cellphones meaning a fixed term, but there is always an actual "contract" (agreement) with the terms of the service regardless of whether the plan has a fixed term or not and regardless of whether it's prepaid or not.
Despite the colloquial use of the word "contract," there is generally always going to be an employment contract (agreement) in place.
Similarly, people colloquially talk about having a "contract" for things like cellphones meaning a fixed term, but there is always an actual "contract" (agreement) with the terms of the service regardless of whether the plan has a fixed term or not and regardless of whether it's prepaid or not.
Contract and agreement are not synonyms. Contracts require consideration.
I inserted "agreement" in parentheses to clarify the meaning of contract as a type of legally binding agreement here as opposed to other usages of the word.
I don't think this is a controversial definition of the word contract (for example Wikipedia's entry for "contract" states, "A contract is a legally enforceable agreement...").
I did not say that contract and agreement are synonyms that can be replaced with each other in all circumstances, so I'm not really sure that your comment is relevant to what I wrote.
I was also trying to clarify that the employment contract might be titled "Employment Agreement" or something like that but is still a "contract."
I don't think this is a controversial definition of the word contract (for example Wikipedia's entry for "contract" states, "A contract is a legally enforceable agreement...").
I did not say that contract and agreement are synonyms that can be replaced with each other in all circumstances, so I'm not really sure that your comment is relevant to what I wrote.
I was also trying to clarify that the employment contract might be titled "Employment Agreement" or something like that but is still a "contract."
But employment minus consideration is either:
If the worker isn't receiving consideration: Slavery, which is illegal in the civilised world (Americans still enslave convicted criminals...)
If the employer isn't receiving consideration: Some sort of payroll error? Are you mistakenly still paying people you fired? Call HR now.
If the worker isn't receiving consideration: Slavery, which is illegal in the civilised world (Americans still enslave convicted criminals...)
If the employer isn't receiving consideration: Some sort of payroll error? Are you mistakenly still paying people you fired? Call HR now.
Sure, but the larger point, that employees have employment contracts in at-will states, is still true.
Some employees have contracts.
My workplace doesn't have them except for employees that are part of bargaining units (ie, the ones represented by unions). Sadly, I am not one of these; my employment is contract-free.
My workplace doesn't have them except for employees that are part of bargaining units (ie, the ones represented by unions). Sadly, I am not one of these; my employment is contract-free.
You would still be likey to have a contract, it would specify at-will and a slew of other clauses.
It would not guarantee a term of employment, in the standard form (but could, if it were so modified).
It would not guarantee a term of employment, in the standard form (but could, if it were so modified).
At-will employees have an employment contract, just one that does not restrict causes of termination beyond those that are not impermissible under generally applicable employment law.
“But they didn't sign anything like a contract,” one might object.
They accepted an offer to do work of some specification for pay of some specification. Even if there was nothing in writing and no other explicit terms, that's sufficient to have a contract.
“But they didn't sign anything like a contract,” one might object.
They accepted an offer to do work of some specification for pay of some specification. Even if there was nothing in writing and no other explicit terms, that's sufficient to have a contract.
[deleted]
>> 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?
You really can't see the issue with authorising a group you have little to no control over, speak on your behalf ? I can totally understand that people share some views with what unions are currently defending.
But the requirement on signing a paper that says "whatever the union currently says and will say in the future 100% represents my point of view" is a fair criticism of the union model.
You really can't see the issue with authorising a group you have little to no control over, speak on your behalf ? I can totally understand that people share some views with what unions are currently defending.
But the requirement on signing a paper that says "whatever the union currently says and will say in the future 100% represents my point of view" is a fair criticism of the union model.
A union authorization card does not “join” someone to a union, nor is it an irrevocable endorsement of “whatever the union will say in the future.”
A union authorization card is simply a means of demonstrating the 30% employee support required for the NLRB to order an election. That’s it. Unions will generally not hold elections until 60% of employees have signed cards, because a majority vote is required.
From the anti-union National Right to Work Foundation:
“You have a legal right to revoke any union authorization card that you have signed. It is illegal for a union to restrict your right to revoke a union authorization card that you signed.”
https://www.nrtw.org/rights-card-check-private/
A union authorization card is simply a means of demonstrating the 30% employee support required for the NLRB to order an election. That’s it. Unions will generally not hold elections until 60% of employees have signed cards, because a majority vote is required.
From the anti-union National Right to Work Foundation:
“You have a legal right to revoke any union authorization card that you have signed. It is illegal for a union to restrict your right to revoke a union authorization card that you signed.”
https://www.nrtw.org/rights-card-check-private/
> "whatever the union currently says and will say in the future 100% represents my point of view"
Is that what it says? It says that you have to agree to be legally responsible for the union's opinions on netflix shows, or of your cousin's marriage?
No, it says that you're agreeing for them to represent you with the company, not some made-up all-encompassing scaremongering paraphrasing of that.
Is that what it says? It says that you have to agree to be legally responsible for the union's opinions on netflix shows, or of your cousin's marriage?
No, it says that you're agreeing for them to represent you with the company, not some made-up all-encompassing scaremongering paraphrasing of that.
The same criticism still works, though. I can like their position for negotiating with Amazon today, without necessarily having to agree that I'm going to like it forever.
Mind you, I'm not necessarily on Amazon's side here. Their scare-mongering is pretty slimy, to say no more. But IMTDb's objection is valid, even adjusted for your criticism.
Mind you, I'm not necessarily on Amazon's side here. Their scare-mongering is pretty slimy, to say no more. But IMTDb's objection is valid, even adjusted for your criticism.
That's true of any system based on democratic rule. It's not much of a criticism because it's still better than anything else that we've come up with.
At least in Poland there can be multiple unions in same company. Then, you can choose one that represents your views best
Unions are kind of like electing congressional representatives. You and your peers elect someone to represent their interests. Its democratic representation.
When it comes to a company making changes benefiting workers, collective bargaining is far more powerful than a single worker voice.
Unions are democratically controlled by the membership. When was the last time your employer gave you a vote on anything?
It's a bad thing if the people signing the card or filling out the form do no, in fact, want the union to represent them. In fact, if you look at those signs they pretty much all have one thing in common: the people they'd convince not to sign up to a legally-binding agreement that the union will represent them are those who are not aware this is in fact what they're signing up for, and in the case of the last one specifically people who aren't aware this isn't something Amazon is requring of them as a normal part of the job. Make of that what you will.
Realistically 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.
Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage, more than double the federal minimum wage. I think at the time Walmart was at $10 or $11.
I live in very liberal SF but outside of my bubble, I hear people complain that it’s not possible to hire Nannies/housecleaners/employees anymore when Amazon and Starbucks pay $18/hr. Seems like the answer is easy: pay them more or make the job more desirable.
Amazon working conditions are challenging, and they have been super anti-union. But they’ve also done more to increase wages in the US than anyone in Washington in the past 15 years, arguably second biggest in past 40 [1].
[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
I live in very liberal SF but outside of my bubble, I hear people complain that it’s not possible to hire Nannies/housecleaners/employees anymore when Amazon and Starbucks pay $18/hr. Seems like the answer is easy: pay them more or make the job more desirable.
Amazon working conditions are challenging, and they have been super anti-union. But they’ve also done more to increase wages in the US than anyone in Washington in the past 15 years, arguably second biggest in past 40 [1].
[1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart
Yes, a big chunk of the labor shortages in hospitality, child care, etc. we’ve seen the last two years is a direct result of Amazon hiring lots and lots of people. And as shitty as the conditions of those jobs may be, they’re often still better than where they’re coming from. Sticking labels to boxes and moving them around a warehouse all day may still be better than dealing with handsy bar hounds or screaming children.
I’m not here to say that Amazon is doing a great job and we should all be singing Jeff Bezos’s good graces. But I will say that unionization does come with a cost that is borne not by Amazon’s executives or their shareholders, but on everyone who could want to work at Amazon but can’t because their jobs are more scarce, and by everyone who buys things from retailers (Amazon or not) in the form of higher prices.
Unionists like to talk about how the labor movement provided a lot of basic protections for workers and the 40 hour work week. What they like to talk less about is American unions’ frequent associations with organized crime, it’s history of racism and sexism, all of the environmental bills it has fought against. I could go on.
A union-free Amazon has driven up wages for workers throughout the economy. And it has helped keep prices low for everyone else so that even if you don’t earn as much as a Amazon warehouse worker nor shop at Amazon, you can still afford many basic necessities. So yes, I’m saying we should be singing the good graces of competition.
I’m not here to say that Amazon is doing a great job and we should all be singing Jeff Bezos’s good graces. But I will say that unionization does come with a cost that is borne not by Amazon’s executives or their shareholders, but on everyone who could want to work at Amazon but can’t because their jobs are more scarce, and by everyone who buys things from retailers (Amazon or not) in the form of higher prices.
Unionists like to talk about how the labor movement provided a lot of basic protections for workers and the 40 hour work week. What they like to talk less about is American unions’ frequent associations with organized crime, it’s history of racism and sexism, all of the environmental bills it has fought against. I could go on.
A union-free Amazon has driven up wages for workers throughout the economy. And it has helped keep prices low for everyone else so that even if you don’t earn as much as a Amazon warehouse worker nor shop at Amazon, you can still afford many basic necessities. So yes, I’m saying we should be singing the good graces of competition.
> But I will say that unionization does come with a cost that is borne not by Amazon’s executives or their shareholders, but ...
I like parts of the analysis (if a big player has to pay higher wages, this will affect many in different ways). But I think it's hard to discuss what exactly the implications would be without a deeper analysis including numbers.
Without numbers, I find that participants in a discussion are often tempted to put a high emphasis on a certain argument or on the impact of a mechanism just because they have come up with that argument or mechanism. But actual numbers might imply a different weighting.
An example would be: With longer fingernails you might be able to swim faster. But to what degree?
I like parts of the analysis (if a big player has to pay higher wages, this will affect many in different ways). But I think it's hard to discuss what exactly the implications would be without a deeper analysis including numbers.
Without numbers, I find that participants in a discussion are often tempted to put a high emphasis on a certain argument or on the impact of a mechanism just because they have come up with that argument or mechanism. But actual numbers might imply a different weighting.
An example would be: With longer fingernails you might be able to swim faster. But to what degree?
wages are one thing, working conditions are another.
It doesn't matter how much you pay me if I can't see my kids and have to pee in a bottle.
It doesn't matter how much you pay me if I can't see my kids and have to pee in a bottle.
Easy to say on a forum, but the reality is that wages and working condition is related.
Obviously Amazon is giving good enough wages for their working condition as evidenced by people choosing to work there rather than leaving.
Obviously Amazon is giving good enough wages for their working condition as evidenced by people choosing to work there rather than leaving.
While I like the idea of unions, I can say that they've been a disappointment in my career. One of my colleagues desperately needed the protection of the union at work when he got caught up in office politics. Some of his rivals for a big promotion got him accused of something that had nothing to do with work. It was all cancel culture. The union, though, didn't back him up at all. They make a big show about somehow fighting management for the workers, but in this case they were happy to help the management screw the guy over and end his career. Sure they're a union, but they're humans and sometimes they'll be aligned against you.
I’m reading this as, he made racist or otherwise hateful statements in a semi-public forum and nobody was going to put their organization’s name behind that. It’s an interesting problem. On the one hand it’s a free country you can say what you please and your employee can fire you for it. On the other hand I think it’s inhumane for someone to lose their job - and most notably healthcare - because they are one of a large number of knob heads out there and were unwise enough to advertise it.
I think someone who is willing to speak out hatefully against large swathes of the population based on things like sex and race are exactly the kind of people that should be ostracized. In the case of the work environment, getting fired. If they aren't, they stick around, making coworkers uncomfortable, possibly getting promoted and then ensuring the group they hate doesn't get hired or promoted
But HR departments are not usually doing that as a first step. They talk to the employee and try to get an apology if needed. The stories in the news are always egregious examples or people with a long history and it was the last straw
But HR departments are not usually doing that as a first step. They talk to the employee and try to get an apology if needed. The stories in the news are always egregious examples or people with a long history and it was the last straw
Without a due process ensured by a union, it’s very hard to know what they did.
Even if someone does something truly horrific, unions still need to protect their rights to a proper hearing, evidence, etc.
A while ago a reporter was fired from the NYTimes for repeating racist language used by a third party.
The reporter had works at the NYTimes for decades with a clear record. A few years before the incident, they became part of unions negotiating team.
Once they joined the negotiating team, the paper suddenly began disciplining then for minor infractions.
Once the allegations about racist language came about, they had a dirty record.
Per the union agreement, had a right to see the evidence against them. The paper refused to do that.
If this person hadn’t been part of union negotiating team, they would have had a clean record, and likely would have survived.
They are now working as a reporter at the Economist.
Even if someone does something truly horrific, unions still need to protect their rights to a proper hearing, evidence, etc.
A while ago a reporter was fired from the NYTimes for repeating racist language used by a third party.
The reporter had works at the NYTimes for decades with a clear record. A few years before the incident, they became part of unions negotiating team.
Once they joined the negotiating team, the paper suddenly began disciplining then for minor infractions.
Once the allegations about racist language came about, they had a dirty record.
Per the union agreement, had a right to see the evidence against them. The paper refused to do that.
If this person hadn’t been part of union negotiating team, they would have had a clean record, and likely would have survived.
They are now working as a reporter at the Economist.
> Some of his rivals for a big promotion got him accused of something that had nothing to do with work.
How does that translate into making racist or hateful statements?
A better translation is they were in a forum where racist or hateful statements were made, but did it participate in making them.
How does that translate into making racist or hateful statements?
A better translation is they were in a forum where racist or hateful statements were made, but did it participate in making them.
This is not a problem with unions as a concept, but rather with the huge, centralised, bureaucratic, political entities they have become in practise. That type of organisation has some benefits, but I believe federations of highly local unions would be more effective for helping individual people deal with specific pickles.
It’s easily possible to argue that the concept or structure of unions, and their relationships to business, as generally implemented, tends towards those corruptions.
The same argument applies to the structure of capitalism.
> Amazon has significantly increased wages. They were at the forefront of the $15 wage
Warehouse workers before Amazon were making over $20/hr. Amazon seriously depressed wages for that kind of work. How do you think they got so profitable and outcompeted everyone else in that space?
Warehouse workers before Amazon were making over $20/hr. Amazon seriously depressed wages for that kind of work. How do you think they got so profitable and outcompeted everyone else in that space?
Only been in a few rando warehouses, and I think the reason is most rando warehouses are inefficient. One worker may ship 15 packages an hour. I bet the Amazon packages per worker per hour is multiple times higher.
Could you share a source for this? Couldn't find much after a bit of googling.
You’re saying conflicting things, Amazon “leads raising wages” to you but then “it’s not possible to hire X at rate Y so people have to pay more.”
Amazon has to pay more because their jobs are shit. They aren’t doing anything to raise wages they’re just trying to get people’s asses in the door. I’m sort of shocked you linked to the department of labor’s historical page as some sort of proof of your idea.
I can guarantee that wage is the minimum they can pay to get people in the door for the level of work required by them calculated by a legion of economists.
The fact you think Amazon jobs are competing with “Nannies/house cleaners/employees” is equally strange. Like somehow these jobs are related?! Why do you only compare those jobs to Amazon factory jobs?
Amazon has to pay more because their jobs are shit. They aren’t doing anything to raise wages they’re just trying to get people’s asses in the door. I’m sort of shocked you linked to the department of labor’s historical page as some sort of proof of your idea.
I can guarantee that wage is the minimum they can pay to get people in the door for the level of work required by them calculated by a legion of economists.
The fact you think Amazon jobs are competing with “Nannies/house cleaners/employees” is equally strange. Like somehow these jobs are related?! Why do you only compare those jobs to Amazon factory jobs?
Amazon rose wages and have some the highest warehouse worker wages around, to the point where they are creating upward pressure on wages in other industries.
Their jobs also are super stressful and burn people out.
These things are not contradictory.
Anecdotally, in support of the comment you are replying to, Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here, and $100-$150 a night isn't anywhere near enough to screw with her sleep schedule. She works $18/hr morning shifts and now owns a car.
Their jobs also are super stressful and burn people out.
These things are not contradictory.
Anecdotally, in support of the comment you are replying to, Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here, and $100-$150 a night isn't anywhere near enough to screw with her sleep schedule. She works $18/hr morning shifts and now owns a car.
This seems like a poor comparison. Your babysitter left a part time job (100/25 = 4 hours of work per day) for a full time one and can now afford a car.
Yeah; good for her. The point is that Starbucks and Amazon have created an ever raising floor for the price of labor.
They're low-skill/training jobs, so no skilled job is able to pay less than that. (Also, the Starbucks thing is part time, and she had babysat for other people too -- babysitting probably made sense at 2x the hourly rate of a part time job, but $25 isn't 2x anymore.)
They're low-skill/training jobs, so no skilled job is able to pay less than that. (Also, the Starbucks thing is part time, and she had babysat for other people too -- babysitting probably made sense at 2x the hourly rate of a part time job, but $25 isn't 2x anymore.)
> Starbucks poached our babysitter. $25/hour is the market rate for babysitters around here
Seems like $25/hour was the market rate.
Seems like $25/hour was the market rate.
I get the impression the dollar amount didn't change. Instead, the existence of the market did. (None of the other parents we know have been able to find babysitters either.)
Presumably, it'll even out after the labor shortages subside.
Presumably, it'll even out after the labor shortages subside.
Have you tried offering $2,500 per hour? The market exists. There are babies that need babysitting, and people capable of babysitting.
What does not exist is an intersection of the supply and demand curves of people willing and able to pay what people capable of babysitting want to get paid for babysitting.
What does not exist is an intersection of the supply and demand curves of people willing and able to pay what people capable of babysitting want to get paid for babysitting.
Are we talking about nannies or a sitter for a random single night? Are there no teenagers in the neighborhood who want an “easy” 4 hours work? That’s what we did with my son (late 90s). Same as my parents did with me and my sister (early 80s).
If he's in SF.. probably not, actually.
>their jobs are shit
I have a couple friends that have worked at Amazon warehouses and also worked at shipping centers for UPS and FedEx and they both told me that Amazon not only paid better but had better working conditions. Not saying that's the case universally, but I don't think it's right to uniquely criticize Amazon and not the industry at large, especially if Amazon really is a better employer than their competition.
Additional context: it wasn’t until 2015 that Walmart raised its minimum wage from the federal minimum to $9/hr. It’s now $12.
The federal minimum is not really something that should be taken as a point of reference (from the employees side).
A better metric: "How much do jobs pay that are easily available to me?" (And so in this sense, the wages of Wallmart and Amazon seem to be very much relevant for many.)
Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)".
A better metric: "How much do jobs pay that are easily available to me?" (And so in this sense, the wages of Wallmart and Amazon seem to be very much relevant for many.)
Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)".
>Another metric: "How long does it take to earn enough for my baseline expenses (rent, food, health, retirement money, etc.)".
In my opinion, this is the only valid metric.
If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the business should not exist. Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.
In my opinion, this is the only valid metric.
If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the business should not exist. Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.
> If a business cannot pay people enough to live, the business should not exist.
I'll assume you are talking about full time all year jobs. Each one of the baseline expenses defined above are not nominally set in stone. They are different for every person. I might define baseline food as beans and rice, while others might define it as steak and lobster. The same goes for the other baseline expenses defined above. This is why allowing individuals to make decisions is so important. If you want to dismiss the idea of any one person deciding for themselves what that baseline is, there would have to be a group(gov't/union) to decide what these baselines are. One problem I have is if you allow some group to decide what this baseline is, you lose your ability to decide as an individual what your baseline is. Additionally, resources that could have been allocated to you are now allocated to dealing with the regulations and or bureaucracy.
Furthermore, some individuals do not need that baseline, whatever it may be. A child supported by parents may have other expenses covered. A retiree who just wants to be employed to stay sane, may not need all the wages and benefits that a parent of three may need. Paying them less does lower the market price of labor though.
> Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.
I agree. The opposite is true as well. Businesses, aka transactions between people, have just as much a right to exist as the people that do the transacting. Setting aside the statutory protections that LLCs, corporations, etc. provide, a business can be a single person hiring people to do work for them, or a single person who does all the work for themselves(eg. cobbler). The right to interact with others for goods and services is a fundamental right.
I'll assume you are talking about full time all year jobs. Each one of the baseline expenses defined above are not nominally set in stone. They are different for every person. I might define baseline food as beans and rice, while others might define it as steak and lobster. The same goes for the other baseline expenses defined above. This is why allowing individuals to make decisions is so important. If you want to dismiss the idea of any one person deciding for themselves what that baseline is, there would have to be a group(gov't/union) to decide what these baselines are. One problem I have is if you allow some group to decide what this baseline is, you lose your ability to decide as an individual what your baseline is. Additionally, resources that could have been allocated to you are now allocated to dealing with the regulations and or bureaucracy.
Furthermore, some individuals do not need that baseline, whatever it may be. A child supported by parents may have other expenses covered. A retiree who just wants to be employed to stay sane, may not need all the wages and benefits that a parent of three may need. Paying them less does lower the market price of labor though.
> Businesses do not have more of a right to exist than the workers that make them up. Full stop.
I agree. The opposite is true as well. Businesses, aka transactions between people, have just as much a right to exist as the people that do the transacting. Setting aside the statutory protections that LLCs, corporations, etc. provide, a business can be a single person hiring people to do work for them, or a single person who does all the work for themselves(eg. cobbler). The right to interact with others for goods and services is a fundamental right.
> I might define baseline food as beans and rice, while others might define it as steak and lobster.
And such quibbling over definitions is irrelevant when people can't even afford the more affordable of the two.
And such quibbling over definitions is irrelevant when people can't even afford the more affordable of the two.
Transacting is one aspect of business - ownership is much more important, and only exists as far as the government enforces it.
Did early humans own the tools they created? Probably. Government limits this in almost all cases. Even the liberty minded founders of the USA created eminent domain which is not limited in which property the state can take, technically. The USA typically is supportive of private ownership, but not the originator. I think ownership exists inherently in humans. As does it's counterpart theft. We have decided that theft is bad and ownership is good over the millennia. It is possible we may change to not value ownership and theft would then have a more positive connotation.
Business cannot exist without two parties transacting. Businesses can exist without ownership. That is if you do not consider a persons labor to be "owned" by them. There does not even have to be capital exchanged. Bartering for labor can and does happen.
Business cannot exist without two parties transacting. Businesses can exist without ownership. That is if you do not consider a persons labor to be "owned" by them. There does not even have to be capital exchanged. Bartering for labor can and does happen.
> That is if you do not consider a persons labor to be "owned" by them
That would be an insane stance to take. That is essentially arguing in favor of slavery, the idea that someone other than me owns my labour.
You can own the output of my labour if you have an employment contract with me where I trade you that in exchange for something from you, but you can't ever own my labour itself. That would be nuts.
That would be an insane stance to take. That is essentially arguing in favor of slavery, the idea that someone other than me owns my labour.
You can own the output of my labour if you have an employment contract with me where I trade you that in exchange for something from you, but you can't ever own my labour itself. That would be nuts.
Businesses can be owned by all of the workers collectively, its rather silly to assume that's not true and it needs a singular owner. There is zero reason why this would be the case. Groups of people can agree on things, believe it or not.
I'm talking about all jobs
Capitalism was good for the time between feudalism and the industrial revolution, but now we have an excess of goods, food, and housing yet corporations are creating artificial scarcity in order to continue enriching a few people at the expense of everyone else.
We have enough empty housing in California alone to house all homeless people in the US yet we still have people living in the streets. We have people starving while we produce enough food to not only feed all of the US but also Africa, yet corporations throw away good food to create artificial scarcity to protect the profits of a few.
Forming cooperatives owned by the workers who make up the business would be a good step in the right direction, and making the excuses like 'some people don't need that baseline' is horse shit. The purpose of a system is what it does and those jobs aren't just filled by young people, there are older people who should be retired worming minimum wage jobs. There are people trying to support their families in those positions. If those jobs are meant for kids, why are the business open during schools hours?
If we work together we can improve living conditions for all humans
Capitalism was good for the time between feudalism and the industrial revolution, but now we have an excess of goods, food, and housing yet corporations are creating artificial scarcity in order to continue enriching a few people at the expense of everyone else.
We have enough empty housing in California alone to house all homeless people in the US yet we still have people living in the streets. We have people starving while we produce enough food to not only feed all of the US but also Africa, yet corporations throw away good food to create artificial scarcity to protect the profits of a few.
Forming cooperatives owned by the workers who make up the business would be a good step in the right direction, and making the excuses like 'some people don't need that baseline' is horse shit. The purpose of a system is what it does and those jobs aren't just filled by young people, there are older people who should be retired worming minimum wage jobs. There are people trying to support their families in those positions. If those jobs are meant for kids, why are the business open during schools hours?
If we work together we can improve living conditions for all humans
So, you would have the government step in and deny the right of an individual to earn what they may need at that moment, in their specific circumstance, to form a contract with another person - a business owner? The bureaucracy knows better, and if the individual can’t find another job at a level to even scrape by then the bureaucracy steps in again, but is this a path to a solid job in 20 years? The higher the wage, especially federally, the more dramatic and onerous the effect.
It feels deeply infantilizing to me, and will absolutely cut off the bottom rung of society and hasten the unprepared and unskilled towards the coming AI cliff in my opinion.
I personally did not have my own shit together enough to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.
It feels deeply infantilizing to me, and will absolutely cut off the bottom rung of society and hasten the unprepared and unskilled towards the coming AI cliff in my opinion.
I personally did not have my own shit together enough to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.
> I personally did not have my own shit together enough to earn minimum wage, not quite, at the very start. $15/hr+ starts to become a mountain that the least well-off cannot land a position earning, or cannot stay competitive at that rate, in some parts of the nation.
This is the most salient point in my opinion when discussing minimum wages. Employers have to decide which potential employee can produce enough to make up for the wages that they pay. The higher the minimum wage goes, there are less opportunities to get a career started due to not being hired. Experience is highly valued in almost every field. If you cannot get a low paying job just to build some experience in your resume, you delay or never get the next high paying job. Minimum wage ends up crippling the very people it was meant to help.
This is the most salient point in my opinion when discussing minimum wages. Employers have to decide which potential employee can produce enough to make up for the wages that they pay. The higher the minimum wage goes, there are less opportunities to get a career started due to not being hired. Experience is highly valued in almost every field. If you cannot get a low paying job just to build some experience in your resume, you delay or never get the next high paying job. Minimum wage ends up crippling the very people it was meant to help.
Or employees could group together to form cooperative companies that don't simply work to extract from their labor and actually provides a decent living for everyone. There is no reason that we should be all working together as a group to make a few people wealthier when they didn't do any of the actual work.
We already produce enough food, goods, and housing for everyone in the country to live with their basic needs met. The only reason that isn't happening is because there is a small group of capital owners and corporations that work to create artificial scarcity. It's an absolutely disgusting practice that benefits nobody but people who are already rich
With the AI cliff that you discuss, productivity will increase even more than it did in the industrial revolution and there is even less of a reason to continue with our absurd current system of making a tiny out of people rich at the expense of everyone else.
With the AI cliff that you discuss, productivity will increase even more than it did in the industrial revolution and there is even less of a reason to continue with our absurd current system of making a tiny out of people rich at the expense of everyone else.
You are right that Amazon has raised wages, but only by a fraction of what they will have to if their workers unionize.
> If the USA is going to allow manufacturers to outsource the majority of well-paid (~$30/hr avg) manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China
What? You think overseas manufacturers are paying $30 an hour?
It wasn't high-skilled manufacturing that was outsourced. Welders and machinists still have near zero unemployment and make about as much as a software engineer. It was low skilled manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to China. Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
What? You think overseas manufacturers are paying $30 an hour?
It wasn't high-skilled manufacturing that was outsourced. Welders and machinists still have near zero unemployment and make about as much as a software engineer. It was low skilled manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to China. Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
High-skilled manufacturing was absolutely outsourced outside of the US.
> Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced) certainly paid that much and more in inflation adjusted dollars. From a book studying the auto industry describing average wages in Detroit,
> At $11.62 an hour in 1982 wages, Detroit's autoworkers, according to U.S. car companies, were simply too expensive, particularly with the added cost of pensions, health insurance, and union-negotiated work rules.
This is already over $30/hr in 2022 dollars.
> Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced) certainly paid that much and more in inflation adjusted dollars. From a book studying the auto industry describing average wages in Detroit,
> At $11.62 an hour in 1982 wages, Detroit's autoworkers, according to U.S. car companies, were simply too expensive, particularly with the added cost of pensions, health insurance, and union-negotiated work rules.
This is already over $30/hr in 2022 dollars.
> Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced)
The decline of Detroit UAW auto industry definitely weren't outsourced. It certainly wasn't GM that opened car factories in Japan and Germany. And it certainly wasn't GM shareholders or executives that benefited from the rise of Japanese and German imports.
This isn't outsourcing, this is simply a case of American carmakers being outcompeted by better products from Japanese and European competitors. (A significant fraction of which were actually assembled in US-based plants owned by those overseas competitors.)
This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in the world that can protect poorly managed American companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car reliability, affordability and safety.)
The decline of Detroit UAW auto industry definitely weren't outsourced. It certainly wasn't GM that opened car factories in Japan and Germany. And it certainly wasn't GM shareholders or executives that benefited from the rise of Japanese and German imports.
This isn't outsourcing, this is simply a case of American carmakers being outcompeted by better products from Japanese and European competitors. (A significant fraction of which were actually assembled in US-based plants owned by those overseas competitors.)
This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in the world that can protect poorly managed American companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car reliability, affordability and safety.)
1. Both factors matter. Most manufacturing for the American automakers also happens outside of the US. That is outsourcing. People still buy American cars.
2. It does have to do with mobility of capital in that many of these "international" competitors are still reliant on American capital and are owned in no small part by American institutional investors.
> This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in the world that can protect poorly managed American companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car reliability, affordability and safety.)
You are mixing in a moral argument about which is better but it is sort of irrelevant to the veracity of claims like "manufacturing jobs never paid close to $30/hr" and "high-skilled manufacturing was never outsourced."
2. It does have to do with mobility of capital in that many of these "international" competitors are still reliant on American capital and are owned in no small part by American institutional investors.
> This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in the world that can protect poorly managed American companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car reliability, affordability and safety.)
You are mixing in a moral argument about which is better but it is sort of irrelevant to the veracity of claims like "manufacturing jobs never paid close to $30/hr" and "high-skilled manufacturing was never outsourced."
> It does have to do with mobility of capital in that many of these "international" competitors are still reliant on American capital and are owned in no small part by American institutional investors.
The Japanese auto industry, like virtually all of postwar Japan, was almost entirely financed by Japan's persistently high domestic savings rate. You don't have to take my word for it, just look at the long and persistently high current account deficit Japan has with the US. Japan is a huge net exporter of capital, not importer, and it has been for 50 years.
The Japanese auto industry, like virtually all of postwar Japan, was almost entirely financed by Japan's persistently high domestic savings rate. You don't have to take my word for it, just look at the long and persistently high current account deficit Japan has with the US. Japan is a huge net exporter of capital, not importer, and it has been for 50 years.
The majority of the auto factory jobs that were (e.g. automotive assembly line work) are considered unskilled work; not even semi-skilled; never mind high-skill.
two points were made:
1. only low skilled jobs were outsourced
2. low skilled jobs by definition do not pay more than $30/hr.
i am saying at least one of these is wrong, but it really is a question of semantics which one it is.
1. only low skilled jobs were outsourced
2. low skilled jobs by definition do not pay more than $30/hr.
i am saying at least one of these is wrong, but it really is a question of semantics which one it is.
I rather think the point is that outsourcing of those jobs was proof of the assertion that unskilled manufacturing jobs at $30/hr (in 2022 money) plus rich benefits are not a thing that was sustainable.
Go ahead and re-read the comment you are defending. I think it has twisted in your memory to something much more reasonable rather than something that can be verifiably fact-checked as false.
If the jobs were to come back to the US, they'd need to pay $18+/hour, since they're worse than a warehouse job, and Amazon pays so well.
At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or machinists make).
At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or machinists make).
> since they're worse than a warehouse job, and Amazon pays so well
Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
> Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse. It's easy for someone working as a developer to maintain that warehouse jobs aren't all "equally terrible." They mostly are terrible. The majority of warehouse workers would rather be working another job, especially Amazon workers. In many of their labor markets, Amazon is chewing through the available labor supply faster than it can be replenished. By the end of this year and especially by the end of 2024 in many markets Amazon will no longer have fresh workers. I wonder where you prime delivery will be then.
Further, Amazon might pay higher than average wages for the industry, but the high turnover creates an oversupply of warehouse skilled labor and actually depresses wages. They offer slight incentives for staying but then overwork their employees to encourage their resignations to hire newer, minimum starting pay employees.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-am...
I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse. It's easy for someone working as a developer to maintain that warehouse jobs aren't all "equally terrible." They mostly are terrible. The majority of warehouse workers would rather be working another job, especially Amazon workers. In many of their labor markets, Amazon is chewing through the available labor supply faster than it can be replenished. By the end of this year and especially by the end of 2024 in many markets Amazon will no longer have fresh workers. I wonder where you prime delivery will be then.
Further, Amazon might pay higher than average wages for the industry, but the high turnover creates an oversupply of warehouse skilled labor and actually depresses wages. They offer slight incentives for staying but then overwork their employees to encourage their resignations to hire newer, minimum starting pay employees.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-am...
> I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse.
I have, on multiple warehouse floors, for around 3 years cumulatively.
Meanwhile, it's obvious you're projecting your own inexperience. Maybe you're the one who should actually set foot in a warehouse before commenting.
> They mostly are terrible.
Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service; I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers) long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
Amazon is the exception, not the rule. Warehouse workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors - but this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
I have, on multiple warehouse floors, for around 3 years cumulatively.
Meanwhile, it's obvious you're projecting your own inexperience. Maybe you're the one who should actually set foot in a warehouse before commenting.
> They mostly are terrible.
Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service; I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers) long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
Amazon is the exception, not the rule. Warehouse workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors - but this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
For various reasons, I won't be replying after this.
> I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse.
I don't think that I should have said this, and my combative tone wasn't constructive to the discussion. It is my normal, sometimes incorrect operating assumption on this site that while the general user knows about tech that they know jack-all about working in retail etc.
> Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Generally speaking, I do consider this to be true, especially in triple digit weather with high humidity which seems to be the norm moving forward. We are all less human and more prone to aggression in this heat. I am grateful that I have the privilege of working in an air conditioned office now.
> Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. > I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers).
Neither of these descriptions provide a positive assertion of warehouse work being not terrible. Warehouse work often takes a physical and mental toll that makes pursuing opportunities to leave it absurdly difficult without social support. I think that your descriptions only further lend credence to my claim that working in a warehouse is generally terrible or at the very least not pleasant.
> It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service > long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
I recognize this misanthropy. I still have it from my time working in retail and elsewhere. It'll be a cold day in July when I go back of my own volition. I get it. I really do. I'm not going to rehash my experiences here, but it sounds like you've had similar moments, hours, shifts, years.
I see that you've also fallen for that trap of hating one type of low income work more than another. They all have their shitty sides. I think all of our lives would be improved if the general public learned a shred of empathy and respect. I won't hold my breath, but sometimes I have hope.
> this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
Amazon typifies and exemplifies this trend of declining working conditions, respect, and exacting work. Also, maybe you should calm down and take a few deep breaths. Try getting more sleep, eating healthy, going for walks where possible, and limiting caffeine intake.
> workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors
I think we'll both find common ground here. I've often had enough of people expressing disdain for 'undifferentiated' or 'low-skilled' labor' being undeserving of income necessary to afford living. I think we could both find common sense and common views, but we have different outlooks on society. Given the quality of our discussion here I sincerely hope we don't have the displeasure of meeting. Vaya con dios.
> I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse.
I don't think that I should have said this, and my combative tone wasn't constructive to the discussion. It is my normal, sometimes incorrect operating assumption on this site that while the general user knows about tech that they know jack-all about working in retail etc.
> Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Generally speaking, I do consider this to be true, especially in triple digit weather with high humidity which seems to be the norm moving forward. We are all less human and more prone to aggression in this heat. I am grateful that I have the privilege of working in an air conditioned office now.
> Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. > I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers).
Neither of these descriptions provide a positive assertion of warehouse work being not terrible. Warehouse work often takes a physical and mental toll that makes pursuing opportunities to leave it absurdly difficult without social support. I think that your descriptions only further lend credence to my claim that working in a warehouse is generally terrible or at the very least not pleasant.
> It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service > long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
I recognize this misanthropy. I still have it from my time working in retail and elsewhere. It'll be a cold day in July when I go back of my own volition. I get it. I really do. I'm not going to rehash my experiences here, but it sounds like you've had similar moments, hours, shifts, years.
I see that you've also fallen for that trap of hating one type of low income work more than another. They all have their shitty sides. I think all of our lives would be improved if the general public learned a shred of empathy and respect. I won't hold my breath, but sometimes I have hope.
> this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
Amazon typifies and exemplifies this trend of declining working conditions, respect, and exacting work. Also, maybe you should calm down and take a few deep breaths. Try getting more sleep, eating healthy, going for walks where possible, and limiting caffeine intake.
> workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors
I think we'll both find common ground here. I've often had enough of people expressing disdain for 'undifferentiated' or 'low-skilled' labor' being undeserving of income necessary to afford living. I think we could both find common sense and common views, but we have different outlooks on society. Given the quality of our discussion here I sincerely hope we don't have the displeasure of meeting. Vaya con dios.
> Neither of these descriptions provide a positive assertion of warehouse work being not terrible.
And you have every right to that opinion, but that wasn't quite the topic of the discussion; rather, the topic was whether all warehouse working conditions are equally terrible, and my experience (as well as the experiences of my coworkers during that time, some of whom came from Amazon) strongly suggests otherwise.
> I see that you've also fallen for that trap of hating one type of low income work more than another.
That's hardly a "trap"; that's a basic preference for doing hard work v. doing hard work while also being endlessly emotionally abused as part of the job description - and even ignoring Amazon, the former tends to pay at least marginally better.
> Also, maybe you should calm down and take a few deep breaths. Try getting more sleep, eating healthy, going for walks where possible, and limiting caffeine intake.
Maybe you should follow your own advice instead of yet again projecting onto me.
> I've often had enough of people expressing disdain for 'undifferentiated' or 'low-skilled' labor' being undeserving of income necessary to afford living.
And hopefully you realize that I already do agree with that disdain (as is obvious from the other comments of mine on this site over the last 10 years).
> Given the quality of our discussion here I sincerely hope we don't have the displeasure of meeting. Vaya con dios.
If we do, then hopefully it'll be under better circumstances, without the initial hostility.
And you have every right to that opinion, but that wasn't quite the topic of the discussion; rather, the topic was whether all warehouse working conditions are equally terrible, and my experience (as well as the experiences of my coworkers during that time, some of whom came from Amazon) strongly suggests otherwise.
> I see that you've also fallen for that trap of hating one type of low income work more than another.
That's hardly a "trap"; that's a basic preference for doing hard work v. doing hard work while also being endlessly emotionally abused as part of the job description - and even ignoring Amazon, the former tends to pay at least marginally better.
> Also, maybe you should calm down and take a few deep breaths. Try getting more sleep, eating healthy, going for walks where possible, and limiting caffeine intake.
Maybe you should follow your own advice instead of yet again projecting onto me.
> I've often had enough of people expressing disdain for 'undifferentiated' or 'low-skilled' labor' being undeserving of income necessary to afford living.
And hopefully you realize that I already do agree with that disdain (as is obvious from the other comments of mine on this site over the last 10 years).
> Given the quality of our discussion here I sincerely hope we don't have the displeasure of meeting. Vaya con dios.
If we do, then hopefully it'll be under better circumstances, without the initial hostility.
I may be wrong, but besides and before the wage increases, it seems to me like the priority would be for decent working conditions, if what is published from time to time on media is actually true, the biggest issues are about lack of (normal, decent) pauses or rest periods, continuous summoning for increases in productivity, total control on the workers, etc.
All that becomes a lot more tolerable if you're getting double your previous pay.
The pay is why the employees don't quit en mass.
Is this the same Amazon that is convinced they will run out of employees in a few years because they quit so often?
https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...
https://www.vox.com/recode/23170900/leaked-amazon-memo-wareh...
Jeff Bezos wanted high turnover by design: this is why the starting pay is so high and doesn't grow.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...
Only until you’re injured.
> if what is published from time to time on media is actually true
That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions in industrial settings where worker's dying was common.
OSHA did away with all that.
The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is around getting adequate bathroom breaks.
That's a big IF. Unions were invented after the onset of the industrial revolution to combat truly unsafe work conditions in industrial settings where worker's dying was common.
OSHA did away with all that.
The current generation of "bad work condition" complaints is around getting adequate bathroom breaks.
What rock are you living under? Plenty of the documented absolute nightmare of working for Amazon in their warehouses is corroborated by their own internal analysis. Unions are for more than just making sure people don't die when doing their job. The union I am a member of more than doubled the wages of its members after its first 12 years of existence. Crucially it also ensures twice yearly cost of living adjustments. It is the only way for labor to have a meaningful negotiating position. There are shitty unions out there, but there are a lot of shitty employers too. Amazon's internal reporting shows they're going to exhaust the labor pool in several areas because they've cycled through everyone who could possibly work at the warehouses and fulfillment centers. People aren't leaving Amazon because they aren't allowed to use the bathroom. They're leaving Amazon because it is dehumanizing and miserable. Funny how the people who make the lowest wages have to put up with the most shit.
These people are oblivious to the suffering, or excuse it away.
OSHA is always thrown around as either an overbearing force of oppression or a magical savior of the worker by anti-union people.
The reality is that it’s a toothless tiger by design. Many states do their own enforcement, and don’t exactly prioritize it — IIRC, North Carolina has 20% of the inspectors that it says it needs.
I’m sure your cushy IT gig requires you to stand for 6 hours without taking a piss. Try it sometime before attacking others.
The reality is that it’s a toothless tiger by design. Many states do their own enforcement, and don’t exactly prioritize it — IIRC, North Carolina has 20% of the inspectors that it says it needs.
I’m sure your cushy IT gig requires you to stand for 6 hours without taking a piss. Try it sometime before attacking others.
OSHA did away with all that on paper. In reality, OSHA compliance varies considerably across manual labor jobs. Here's how:
Suppose you're a manager/foreman. You never outright tell your staff to ignore safety regulations; you simply give them a huge workload with a deadline and set of equipment that make it impossible to feasibly accomplish the workload within compliance. Your workers catch on that in order to get the job done, they need to ignore the safety regs. As a manager, you look the other way as they ignore the rules. If an injury happens on the job, you then blame the worker for ignoring the safety regulations, which of course you instructed them to follow. Follow up by giving them a drug test so you might even be able to get out of paying them workers comp.
This is how it works in the real world. Source: seen it, done it.
Suppose you're a manager/foreman. You never outright tell your staff to ignore safety regulations; you simply give them a huge workload with a deadline and set of equipment that make it impossible to feasibly accomplish the workload within compliance. Your workers catch on that in order to get the job done, they need to ignore the safety regs. As a manager, you look the other way as they ignore the rules. If an injury happens on the job, you then blame the worker for ignoring the safety regulations, which of course you instructed them to follow. Follow up by giving them a drug test so you might even be able to get out of paying them workers comp.
This is how it works in the real world. Source: seen it, done it.
...
So why didn't you push back and hold the manager foreman's feet to the fire for the scheduling if you knew it caused OSHA violations?
If you do not push back against management, nothing changes, and unfortunately, to get anything provable in a court of law beyond he said she said... It has to be on paper/in an email.
Go on. Text your boss you can't get the job done on his schedule without violating OSHA standards. Then come back tomorrow and finish it. If they decide to fire you, sue. All the evidence you need will be discoverable.
Don't absorb risk for people not putting their neck on the line.
If you do not push back against management, nothing changes, and unfortunately, to get anything provable in a court of law beyond he said she said... It has to be on paper/in an email.
Go on. Text your boss you can't get the job done on his schedule without violating OSHA standards. Then come back tomorrow and finish it. If they decide to fire you, sue. All the evidence you need will be discoverable.
Don't absorb risk for people not putting their neck on the line.
Where this comment is missing is how you pay rent after doing this
For heaven sake. You're enabling this type of behavior. Every manager will push and squeeze to get everything out of you they can.
Here's the secret though: It's their ass on the line if it doesn't get done. If they're a middle manager, they now have to go back with hat in hand and tell their higher up they made a mistake. That repeats for however many layers of middle management exist until resources get properly allocated. It's their business that takes the hit if it gets out to client's that project their having built is meat grinding their laborers.
You the end laborer, hold the power in this case. A manager cannot knowingly force you to conduct your work in such a way as your rights to a safe workplace are jeopardized. You have the power to expose it, and make it unequivocably known to your higher ups that these violations are happening. You can report your employer to your local OSHA enforcement arm.
A law on paper but never enforced is no law at all, and a workplace where everyone lets the boss abuse one another is the only outcome if you won't stand up for you, and sometimes, encourage someone else to stand up for themselves. I did it for my people damn it. You need to do it for yourselves and your peers. This is why labor organization is important. Businesses can abuse you because people don't act in concert to the degree the business does.
No work is so important it cannot be done as safely as possible. No one has the right to conspire to put you in harms way. An employer who provably does is not entitled to be an employer in the United States. That is a privilege, not a right.
Fight, damnit! Fight! Or vote with your feet by finding something else to do! If you don't set the bar for people to not work for, and refuse to make their life more difficult by making them accountable for their own malfeasance, you're passing the buck to the next crazy motherf'er who will, and we are in short supply.
Here's the secret though: It's their ass on the line if it doesn't get done. If they're a middle manager, they now have to go back with hat in hand and tell their higher up they made a mistake. That repeats for however many layers of middle management exist until resources get properly allocated. It's their business that takes the hit if it gets out to client's that project their having built is meat grinding their laborers.
You the end laborer, hold the power in this case. A manager cannot knowingly force you to conduct your work in such a way as your rights to a safe workplace are jeopardized. You have the power to expose it, and make it unequivocably known to your higher ups that these violations are happening. You can report your employer to your local OSHA enforcement arm.
A law on paper but never enforced is no law at all, and a workplace where everyone lets the boss abuse one another is the only outcome if you won't stand up for you, and sometimes, encourage someone else to stand up for themselves. I did it for my people damn it. You need to do it for yourselves and your peers. This is why labor organization is important. Businesses can abuse you because people don't act in concert to the degree the business does.
No work is so important it cannot be done as safely as possible. No one has the right to conspire to put you in harms way. An employer who provably does is not entitled to be an employer in the United States. That is a privilege, not a right.
Fight, damnit! Fight! Or vote with your feet by finding something else to do! If you don't set the bar for people to not work for, and refuse to make their life more difficult by making them accountable for their own malfeasance, you're passing the buck to the next crazy motherf'er who will, and we are in short supply.
The problem is chronic. Activists of all kinds have to eat, see the doctor, pay rent, and so forth.
Those things are currently damn tough for most people, and that's where
FIGHT DAMMIT!!
...breaks down.
You aren't wrong. Having been in those scenarios, when it was my turn to make the calls, the stuff got done safely, work / life balance is appropriate, and so forth.
It's expensive too! Tons of economic pressure on not doing the right things for and with people.
The farther away from the edge people are, the more they are able to do those things you say. The more robust their support network is, the more able they are.
Those things are currently damn tough for most people, and that's where
FIGHT DAMMIT!!
...breaks down.
You aren't wrong. Having been in those scenarios, when it was my turn to make the calls, the stuff got done safely, work / life balance is appropriate, and so forth.
It's expensive too! Tons of economic pressure on not doing the right things for and with people.
The farther away from the edge people are, the more they are able to do those things you say. The more robust their support network is, the more able they are.
This is pure historical revisionism concocted solely to diminish modern struggles for worker organisation.
Wages are and have always been the primary driver of unionising.
The main motivation was never mustache twirling capitalist charicatures shoveling children into furnaces as fuel or some other unambiguous evil that we have since banished. Conditions have always been part of the bargain, but the goal has always been first and foremost higher wages.
Wages are and have always been the primary driver of unionising.
The main motivation was never mustache twirling capitalist charicatures shoveling children into furnaces as fuel or some other unambiguous evil that we have since banished. Conditions have always been part of the bargain, but the goal has always been first and foremost higher wages.
> shoveling children into furnaces
https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/factory-fire-reveals-banglad...
https://thediplomat.com/2021/07/factory-fire-reveals-banglad...
> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
Is it what usually happens when workers unionize? It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.
Is it what usually happens when workers unionize? It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.
> It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.
Can you substantiate this claim?
With the vast majority of goods the price is set by the market, i.e. higher wages would indeed result in a smaller profit margin and not in a higher price.
Can you substantiate this claim?
With the vast majority of goods the price is set by the market, i.e. higher wages would indeed result in a smaller profit margin and not in a higher price.
It could be either. In most cases it is likely both (shrinking margins, higher prices).
The price is determined by the market. But there’s a demand curve. There are many prices that an item could sell at, with varying numbers of buyers at each price.
In a highly competitive market, the price should be driven down close to the cost of production. This allows the most people to buy at the lowest possible price, at the expense of retailer margins.
Amazon probably has the best cost structure of online retailers. Which means in many cases they are setting the floor on the price. If their labor costs go up enough to wipe out their margins, their prices must go up, or they must exit the market for highly competitive items. With less competition, other retailers have more leeway to increase prices.
As a society we may decide it is worth paying more for goods to ensure a fair living wage and safe working conditions. That doesn’t sound unreasonable. But to assume you can get that without increasing prices is naive.
The price is determined by the market. But there’s a demand curve. There are many prices that an item could sell at, with varying numbers of buyers at each price.
In a highly competitive market, the price should be driven down close to the cost of production. This allows the most people to buy at the lowest possible price, at the expense of retailer margins.
Amazon probably has the best cost structure of online retailers. Which means in many cases they are setting the floor on the price. If their labor costs go up enough to wipe out their margins, their prices must go up, or they must exit the market for highly competitive items. With less competition, other retailers have more leeway to increase prices.
As a society we may decide it is worth paying more for goods to ensure a fair living wage and safe working conditions. That doesn’t sound unreasonable. But to assume you can get that without increasing prices is naive.
I'd like to point out that amazon is making ginormous profits, meaning increasing wages and ensuring safe working conditions would hardly make a dent in amazons revenue.
Does Amazon retail make ginormous profits? Genuine question. I googled for a few minutes but, given the way the company is structured with regards to AWS, it doesn't seem simple (possible?) for an outsider to determine the margins on their retail operations.
From their last earnings release [0], their retail division lost 3 billion dollars last quarter.
[0]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2022/q1/...
[0]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2022/q1/...
They're making profits off of AWS, not the ecommerce division.
Anecdote not data
Some of the grocery shops near me are known union shops. The prices are in fact higher than the non union shops.
Some of the grocery shops near me are known union shops. The prices are in fact higher than the non union shops.
It also means Amazon increases spending on automation.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/22/amazon-debuts-a-fully-auto...
https://techcrunch.com/2022/06/22/amazon-debuts-a-fully-auto...
Automation is going to happen no matter what. Even people working for free is not going to stop it.
Amazon is going to do that regardless.
I was wondering how far away are they from fully automating the process? I always see their new robots.
A very long way.
I wrote this comment earlier today, but didn't post it. Now I do, and added some stuff at the end to hint the answer to your question:
I worked for amazon logistics some time ago and the lack of future vision and aim for automating everything™ was the biggest reason for why I quit.
I wish amazon would invest more into automation, but at the moment humans are just so much cheaper that you’d rather hire 500-2000 people for a few months peak (prime day and holiday season), than invest in automation.
Actually, amazon itself does zero to none research and engineering in logistics by themselves. Instead, they only buy third party solutions (Opex) or the whole company (Kiva - now amazon robotics). And Kiva is only working on the six wheeler, Robin (arm) and Pegasus. What does this mean? Well, amazon has more than one warehouse type: they have the fullfillment centers, where the six wheelers are used, but they also have IXDs (inbound cross dock), where EVERY product, which comes from the vendor and will be sold via fullfillment centers will go through. These IXD facilities have almost no automation, at least the ones which I visited (UK, DE, ES).
People are counting hundreds of shirt buttons by hand.
People are bubble wrapping hoes for gardening by hand.
People are bagging clothes by hand.
People are repackaging STANDARD SIZE cans (food and drinks) into boxes by hand.
People are palletizing STANDARDIZED CONTAINERS BY HAND(!)
People are putting a single scissor into a tote, because the computer told them so. Why? Because someone entered wrong dimensions BY HAND. (You could easily get the dimensions by scanning. Even taking a picture would be sufficient to get the correct dimensions into the system). [1]
Kiva's projects don't solve a single problem regarding: Palletizing, receiving items, sorting items in the RECEIVING part of IXD, labelling items, bubble wrapping items, bagging items, repackaging items into new boxes (literally putting item from container A into container B). What made me sad is that amazon didn't even try to solve these issues. They just act like these problems don't exist and always show the nice fullfillment centers where you pick and stove.
To end my rant: Amazon was the worst company I ever worked for. Insanely slow, very inefficient and way too much nepotism. They lack the actual will and hunger for improvement. My main goal when I applied to amazon was to make an "all lights out warehouse". What I got instead was an enterprise which is rotten on the inside.
But hey, there were still a lot of brillant people, especially my manager (kudos to him!). Also, the engineers who worked for AWS were always very friendly and problem oriented (only had very little contact during outages though).
[1] A tote is one of those yellow boxes: https://media.wired.com/photos/593256d2edfced5820d0fb9d/mast...
I wrote this comment earlier today, but didn't post it. Now I do, and added some stuff at the end to hint the answer to your question:
I worked for amazon logistics some time ago and the lack of future vision and aim for automating everything™ was the biggest reason for why I quit.
I wish amazon would invest more into automation, but at the moment humans are just so much cheaper that you’d rather hire 500-2000 people for a few months peak (prime day and holiday season), than invest in automation.
Actually, amazon itself does zero to none research and engineering in logistics by themselves. Instead, they only buy third party solutions (Opex) or the whole company (Kiva - now amazon robotics). And Kiva is only working on the six wheeler, Robin (arm) and Pegasus. What does this mean? Well, amazon has more than one warehouse type: they have the fullfillment centers, where the six wheelers are used, but they also have IXDs (inbound cross dock), where EVERY product, which comes from the vendor and will be sold via fullfillment centers will go through. These IXD facilities have almost no automation, at least the ones which I visited (UK, DE, ES).
People are counting hundreds of shirt buttons by hand.
People are bubble wrapping hoes for gardening by hand.
People are bagging clothes by hand.
People are repackaging STANDARD SIZE cans (food and drinks) into boxes by hand.
People are palletizing STANDARDIZED CONTAINERS BY HAND(!)
People are putting a single scissor into a tote, because the computer told them so. Why? Because someone entered wrong dimensions BY HAND. (You could easily get the dimensions by scanning. Even taking a picture would be sufficient to get the correct dimensions into the system). [1]
Kiva's projects don't solve a single problem regarding: Palletizing, receiving items, sorting items in the RECEIVING part of IXD, labelling items, bubble wrapping items, bagging items, repackaging items into new boxes (literally putting item from container A into container B). What made me sad is that amazon didn't even try to solve these issues. They just act like these problems don't exist and always show the nice fullfillment centers where you pick and stove.
To end my rant: Amazon was the worst company I ever worked for. Insanely slow, very inefficient and way too much nepotism. They lack the actual will and hunger for improvement. My main goal when I applied to amazon was to make an "all lights out warehouse". What I got instead was an enterprise which is rotten on the inside.
But hey, there were still a lot of brillant people, especially my manager (kudos to him!). Also, the engineers who worked for AWS were always very friendly and problem oriented (only had very little contact during outages though).
[1] A tote is one of those yellow boxes: https://media.wired.com/photos/593256d2edfced5820d0fb9d/mast...
If the customer would pay the higher price, why not raise the price and "capture" this market inefficiency in the form of more yachts for the executives ?
> It seems like most of the times, the result is a higher price for the customer, at least when things go well.
Sure. So the customer buys less product, the company makes less profit, and the shareholders eject the executives.
But there are huge delays in these chains of causation, which provide opportunities for arbitrage.
Sure. So the customer buys less product, the company makes less profit, and the shareholders eject the executives.
But there are huge delays in these chains of causation, which provide opportunities for arbitrage.
The trouble with that argument is that you haven't justified why it should only cause downward pressure on prices when companies have to increase pay due to unions demanding more cash. The exact same process should drive down prices and the amount executives make all the time, which means that the price will already be near the optimum given a particular level of costs and that increasing the costs will increase that optimum price. (This is particularly clear in scenarios where this works so well at pushing prices down that the increased wage demands would lead to losing money on every unit sold at the original price. Obviously in this scenario the price must increase.)
Well, I don't think I said it caused downward pressure on prices! So I don't have to explain why that might happen.
Obviously, if workers can negotiate more effectively by being unionised, that exerts upward pressure on costs. Those additional costs can be met out of profits (i.e. shareholders pay, and execs get sacked) or "efficiencies" (e.g. automation, reducing headcount).
If you can figure out how to make a better product that you can charge more for, then everyone's happy. If you can't, then perhaps your competitor can, even if he's unionised too. Unions can contribute at least as much to product and process improvement as management can. In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
Obviously, if workers can negotiate more effectively by being unionised, that exerts upward pressure on costs. Those additional costs can be met out of profits (i.e. shareholders pay, and execs get sacked) or "efficiencies" (e.g. automation, reducing headcount).
If you can figure out how to make a better product that you can charge more for, then everyone's happy. If you can't, then perhaps your competitor can, even if he's unionised too. Unions can contribute at least as much to product and process improvement as management can. In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
Sorry for replying to self! I said:
> In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
That's arse-over-tit. My view has long been that management's purpose, in a company that makes stuff, is to remove obstacles from production staff. In that respect, they are servants: rather like clerks, or office managers. Managers are an adjunct to production workers, not the other way round.
I don't mean to disparage either clerks or office managers; most of the ones I've worked with were pure gold. But I've never met a useful project manager; and as you get higher in the monkey tree, you meet people who are more difficult/dangerous, and less helpful.
/me retired, had time to reflect on my career. A bit.
I always liked computers as a teen.
I started work in a Big-5 computer company, and gradually moved to smaller companies. Me and big companies wasn't a good match, on reflection. But I can't see what I could have done differently, at the time. Even in the light of what I've learned since.
> In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.
That's arse-over-tit. My view has long been that management's purpose, in a company that makes stuff, is to remove obstacles from production staff. In that respect, they are servants: rather like clerks, or office managers. Managers are an adjunct to production workers, not the other way round.
I don't mean to disparage either clerks or office managers; most of the ones I've worked with were pure gold. But I've never met a useful project manager; and as you get higher in the monkey tree, you meet people who are more difficult/dangerous, and less helpful.
/me retired, had time to reflect on my career. A bit.
I always liked computers as a teen.
I started work in a Big-5 computer company, and gradually moved to smaller companies. Me and big companies wasn't a good match, on reflection. But I can't see what I could have done differently, at the time. Even in the light of what I've learned since.
> 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.
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.
In the Metro NY and upstate regions, there is a supermarket chain called Shoprite that is unionized. Where I live, none of the other chains are union shops.
The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes. Prices are no different than anywhere else.
The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes. Prices are no different than anywhere else.
> The only visible difference as a consumer is there are less (or no) automated checkout lanes.
...Really? That's a straight detriment in my book, as a customer.
I would generally prefer to support a union shop, but I'm extremely fond of self-checkout—and, in fact, further upstate, Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you can use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the way out to pay.
One of the worst things unions can do is try to "protect jobs" at the expense of technological advancement, customer service, or improved product.
...Really? That's a straight detriment in my book, as a customer.
I would generally prefer to support a union shop, but I'm extremely fond of self-checkout—and, in fact, further upstate, Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you can use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the way out to pay.
One of the worst things unions can do is try to "protect jobs" at the expense of technological advancement, customer service, or improved product.
> Wegman's has introduced a self-scan app that you can use to tally up your total as you shop, and just scan a code at the self-checkout register with your phone on the way out to pay.
Kroger did that here a few years ago. They pushed it hard. Got very little uptake. It's still an option, but they aren't shoving it in your face when you walk in. There are just a handful of scanners on a rack by the entrance, and I've never seen anyone using them.
Kroger did that here a few years ago. They pushed it hard. Got very little uptake. It's still an option, but they aren't shoving it in your face when you walk in. There are just a handful of scanners on a rack by the entrance, and I've never seen anyone using them.
Wegman's hasn't been particularly pushing it, and it's not dependent on hardware scanners—it's an app for your phone, that just scans barcodes with the phone camera.
Works great.
Works great.
My guess is that it reduces sales. If you can see a total dollar amount accumulating as you shop, you're more likely to stick to your budget, maybe select cheaper items or avoid impulse buys. If you don't know the total until you get to the checkout lane, you are more likely to just pay it rather than start setting some items out.
They are phasing them in for express in this area - but the company needed to negotiate with the union.
The point is, retail and warehouse unions don’t translate into retail apocalypse.
The point is, retail and warehouse unions don’t translate into retail apocalypse.
Does Wegman's pay you for providing them free labor?
You're subsidizing them at your own cost with self-checkout. After all, you are:
-Updating their inventory tracking system -engaging with the regulatory framework of purchasing on their behalf -being subject to their annoying "loss prevention hot days" where they turn the merchandise scales on.
I've started to take a different view toward these jobs over time. Being an employer is a high bar in the U.S., and if we (the taxpayers proxied through the markets/Federal Reserve) have an objective to have people participating in the workforce, then these "automated" checkouts cost workforce participation.
Which also means fewer training opportunities for low skill workers, fewer jobs of last resort, etc. Not everything is necessarily $$$.
Be a hell of an economics project to really suss out the difference in flow of money in grocers who took different approaches.
You're subsidizing them at your own cost with self-checkout. After all, you are:
-Updating their inventory tracking system -engaging with the regulatory framework of purchasing on their behalf -being subject to their annoying "loss prevention hot days" where they turn the merchandise scales on.
I've started to take a different view toward these jobs over time. Being an employer is a high bar in the U.S., and if we (the taxpayers proxied through the markets/Federal Reserve) have an objective to have people participating in the workforce, then these "automated" checkouts cost workforce participation.
Which also means fewer training opportunities for low skill workers, fewer jobs of last resort, etc. Not everything is necessarily $$$.
Be a hell of an economics project to really suss out the difference in flow of money in grocers who took different approaches.
I could not care less that doing the scanning myself saves Wegman's money. It saves me mental energy and time because I don't need to deal with a human cashier, and I don't need to spend 10 minutes emptying a full cart, scanning every item, then packing them all back into bags and fitting those back into the cart.
In my experience, Aldi/Walmart/Lidl/Costco prices are much lower than Shop Rite. Also, Shop Rites are sort of like franchises, different ones have different owners and management.
I don’t know about Lidl, the the rest aren’t full service grocers either. I’m a big fan of Aldi in particular, but they don’t have a butcher, bakery, prepared food/deli, staffed produce. Awesome store for what they do though. Aldi also pays a premium hourly rate.
Walmart tries to do everything but they suck imo. The produce is garbage, but the dry goods are cheap due to their economy of scale.
Walmart tries to do everything but they suck imo. The produce is garbage, but the dry goods are cheap due to their economy of scale.
Competition limits how much they could raise prices, automation and efficiency increases are needed to compete.
Who is more efficient than Amazon/Walmart/Target/Home Depot/Staples/Costco/etc?
They set the bottom price, and if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins, then their costs increases will have to end up in either prices increases or them no longer selling the product.
The funny thing is that it is Amazon coming along and greatly increasing demand for labor (in conjunction with reduced supply of that type of labor) that caused all the other warehouse jobs and retailers to increase pay.
And I hope the labor continues making gains in their quality of life at work and pay, but I do not see this happening without an increase in prices for products (like we have already seen).
They set the bottom price, and if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins, then their costs increases will have to end up in either prices increases or them no longer selling the product.
The funny thing is that it is Amazon coming along and greatly increasing demand for labor (in conjunction with reduced supply of that type of labor) that caused all the other warehouse jobs and retailers to increase pay.
And I hope the labor continues making gains in their quality of life at work and pay, but I do not see this happening without an increase in prices for products (like we have already seen).
That’s assuming they keep their margins the same. The thing is Amazon isn’t manufacturing anything so their “thin” margins aren’t as sensitive to increased labor costs as 2-4% suggests.
Paying 18$ for something your selling for 20$ is a 10% margin, taxes and CC processing fees are similarly inflexible. So if 2-4% of the final price is profit then they could raise their internal costs by 10% and still be profitable.
Paying 18$ for something your selling for 20$ is a 10% margin, taxes and CC processing fees are similarly inflexible. So if 2-4% of the final price is profit then they could raise their internal costs by 10% and still be profitable.
> if they are earning 2%-4% profit margins
They're not (depending on the product).
My wife used to work in Halloween costume design for a wholesaler (and some of her costumes did end up in Target and Walmart, which was cool to see), and the retailers' margins on those were at least 50%.
As I said, the margin does depend heavily on the product, but do not assume that across-the-board average margins are anywhere near that razor-thin.
They're not (depending on the product).
My wife used to work in Halloween costume design for a wholesaler (and some of her costumes did end up in Target and Walmart, which was cool to see), and the retailers' margins on those were at least 50%.
As I said, the margin does depend heavily on the product, but do not assume that across-the-board average margins are anywhere near that razor-thin.
That's a markup, not a profit margin. A profit margin is after all expenses, which a wholesaler doesn't know about.
Yeah, and I don't think it would be terribly unusual for 50% markups to translate to low-single-digit profit margins in cost-competitive retail sectors - those both seem like about the right ballpark overall. Retail has a lot of costs and wages are one of the big ones.
That is irrelevant because the entire organization’s profit margins are where increased wages would come from.
My point is that the entire organization's profit margins are not likely to be anywhere near 2-4%.
That is what their 10-K filings say.
They are incentivized to hide investments as operating expenses for tax reasons, which muddles the picture.
Source? What are the incentives? Why do the most highly valued companies in the world report much higher profit margins?
I would need a good reason to believe the executives and owners of retail businesses do not want to report higher profit margins.
I would need a good reason to believe the executives and owners of retail businesses do not want to report higher profit margins.
The incentives are simple, profits are taxed.
To simplify, if you want to say develop new software you can call it a capital investment and pay for it with after tax money or call it operating expense and pay for it in pretax money. Guess which one is a better deal.
To simplify, if you want to say develop new software you can call it a capital investment and pay for it with after tax money or call it operating expense and pay for it in pretax money. Guess which one is a better deal.
Regardless of how the expense is classified, the amount of additional money available for wages is still the net income figure. The owners will still want as much net income as possible. They are not going to want to waste money just so they do not have to pay 20% of it to taxes.
Treating workers like shit and churning them limits the workers they can hire and retain.
They even know this - Amazon is running out of eligible workers to hire. But the need to hit quarterly metrics forces the line management to make strategically bad decisions.
They even know this - Amazon is running out of eligible workers to hire. But the need to hit quarterly metrics forces the line management to make strategically bad decisions.
Or Amazon will push for more automation and they will all lose their jobs.
Right now these workers work at Amazon, because that's the best paying job they can find.
Right now these workers work at Amazon, because that's the best paying job they can find.
Amazon will push for more automation regardless.
If the costs of labor go up fast, they have much more incentive to automate. When right now they may think it's cheaper to hire humans.
This would only be true if there was a technology to automate and it was just too expensive.
For jobs that Amazon hires people there isn’t a technology to automate right now.
Such technology is being developed (better AI and better robotics), but increasing the budget wouldn’t necessarily speed things up.
For jobs that Amazon hires people there isn’t a technology to automate right now.
Such technology is being developed (better AI and better robotics), but increasing the budget wouldn’t necessarily speed things up.
Amazon’s Kiva robots, also https://youtu.be/d7J2_vr0ra4, are not installed in every FC.
They are not willing to pay to upgrade all the old FCs, new international FCs, etc. i.e. “it’s too expensive”.
This is also clear in how Amazon waited till the pandemic to add self checkout counters to many Whole Foods. They spent “$4 BB on safety measures for employees” and called self checkout a safety measure to reduce employee to employee density and employee to customer contact. Again it was previously “too expensive to do in mass” even if only for the terrible press it would have brought out side the pandemic.
Not saying “they will never get to it.” They will. Or that it’s not worth it. But the other commenter is also right that unions and hire wages could drive a larger investment in automation earlier than it would have otherwise.
They are not willing to pay to upgrade all the old FCs, new international FCs, etc. i.e. “it’s too expensive”.
This is also clear in how Amazon waited till the pandemic to add self checkout counters to many Whole Foods. They spent “$4 BB on safety measures for employees” and called self checkout a safety measure to reduce employee to employee density and employee to customer contact. Again it was previously “too expensive to do in mass” even if only for the terrible press it would have brought out side the pandemic.
Not saying “they will never get to it.” They will. Or that it’s not worth it. But the other commenter is also right that unions and hire wages could drive a larger investment in automation earlier than it would have otherwise.
You're confusing the absence of the off-the-shelf product with the absence of the technology.
I'm not.
Did you ever work on AI or robotics?
Did you ever work on AI or robotics?
I don’t think you are taking the price increases and inefficiencies that a nationally isolated economy would produce into account. People with less disposable income would suffer most from this.
If you don’t like supply chain issues and inflation right now, you won’t like the model you propose.
If you don’t like supply chain issues and inflation right now, you won’t like the model you propose.
How much do you think Amazon can actually raise prices before people just shop elsewhere?
The simple truth is warehouse employee salaries aren’t significant because of throughput. Someone making 30$/hour vs 15$/hour sounds huge but when people are picking 300+ items an hour that’s 5 cents a pop. But, more realistic unionized job would be 17$/hour but only 250 items a sub 2 cents increase.
The simple truth is warehouse employee salaries aren’t significant because of throughput. Someone making 30$/hour vs 15$/hour sounds huge but when people are picking 300+ items an hour that’s 5 cents a pop. But, more realistic unionized job would be 17$/hour but only 250 items a sub 2 cents increase.
100% agreed. My comment was referring to the part of OPs comment where they criticized globalization and proposed capital controls.
Why do you think it means less for executives? It could be that they pass the costs on to consumers. So everything at Amazon will be more expensive just to pay the premium.
This effect would only really exist for monopolies.
This.
A lot of people, even economists, conflate the freedom of trade with the free movement of capital. They are not the same and not equivalent. I like to point people to this comic [1] that someone made when the TPP was hot news as it accurately describes this in a very accessible way.
Neoliberalism serves the interests of the capital-owning class.
[1]: https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
A lot of people, even economists, conflate the freedom of trade with the free movement of capital. They are not the same and not equivalent. I like to point people to this comic [1] that someone made when the TPP was hot news as it accurately describes this in a very accessible way.
Neoliberalism serves the interests of the capital-owning class.
[1]: https://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/
There isn't a distinction. How is free trade possible if one isn't free to exchange one form of capital for another? Exchange requires movement.
> Yes, that means less for the executives and shareholders. They may have to sell some of their properties, oh dear.
Unrealistic, in neoliberalism.
Unrealistic, in neoliberalism.
This 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.
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.
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$30 is 3 days worth of payment in some countries.
> he only way Amazon workers are going to get decent wage increases.
If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.
If everyone gets paid tomorrow 100 USD/hour, everything around you will start costing 10x more. Look at Switzerland.
1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level?
2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help.
What a strange comment imo. I can’t take the ‘everything will go up!’ stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10 houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious.
By the way, Switzerland’s GDP is 748 billion vs the United States’ 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is meaningless and silly.
2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help.
What a strange comment imo. I can’t take the ‘everything will go up!’ stance seriously while higher ups are buying 10 houses and private jets. The wage gap is atrocious.
By the way, Switzerland’s GDP is 748 billion vs the United States’ 20.94 trillion. Comparing them like that is meaningless and silly.
>Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help
Can you show your work here? Assume Amazon executives cut their salaries to 0, how much extra would they be able to pay workers?
Can you show your work here? Assume Amazon executives cut their salaries to 0, how much extra would they be able to pay workers?
Everyone would get 213 dollars a year extra if just their CEO didn't receive any compensation. Amazon employs approximately 1 million people in the United States and Andy Jassy received 213 million total comp in 2021.
That ~200m (really 61000 shares) vests over 10 years though. So really ~20 bucks per employee per year.
> Everyone would get 213 dollars a year extra if just their CEO didn't receive any compensation.
Wow, then they can buy an extra starbucks coffee now and then. That would surely change their life.
Wow, then they can buy an extra starbucks coffee now and then. That would surely change their life.
So, practically none.
Better off in Jassy's pockets then?
Their example was only a single person cutting salary, so practically meaningless. And I would also argue, in bad faith with the design of proving a point with bad data.
Feel free to pick a representative group of executives for your purposes; it really won't make any difference.
It’s something like $300-1000/yr more if we average over all Amazon employees, depending on who counts as “executives”.
If the high pay is truly attracting better performers (which I admit is unlikely) they could easily be benefiting the company’s workers a larger amount by increasing demand. Or maybe not and they are kinda useless , but in any case the total cost isn’t that high.
If the high pay is truly attracting better performers (which I admit is unlikely) they could easily be benefiting the company’s workers a larger amount by increasing demand. Or maybe not and they are kinda useless , but in any case the total cost isn’t that high.
That doesn't pass the sniff test.
Amazon allegedly has about 1.6 million employees. Assuming that the "executive" class is a trivially small number of them, and that the average employee works say 2,000 hours per year, you're suggesting that the cost to Amazon of paying those executives is somewhere between $960B and $3.2T per year.
The high end of that estimate is about one fifth of the total earned income for the entire U.S. economy.
Amazon allegedly has about 1.6 million employees. Assuming that the "executive" class is a trivially small number of them, and that the average employee works say 2,000 hours per year, you're suggesting that the cost to Amazon of paying those executives is somewhere between $960B and $3.2T per year.
The high end of that estimate is about one fifth of the total earned income for the entire U.S. economy.
> 1. Who is asking for $100/hr at this level?
Why not? If you can double every few years eventually you will get to 100 dollars. And if you claim that everyone needs to make decent wages, who is to define what "decent" is supposed to be? People will always be asking for more, never less.
> 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help.
Even if CEOs gave up their whole salary tomorrow, it would not change the pay of people working in very large companies with dozens of thousands or hundred of thousands of employees.
Why not? If you can double every few years eventually you will get to 100 dollars. And if you claim that everyone needs to make decent wages, who is to define what "decent" is supposed to be? People will always be asking for more, never less.
> 2. Maybe CEOs and executives don’t need to pay themselves such absurd salaries, that would probably help.
Even if CEOs gave up their whole salary tomorrow, it would not change the pay of people working in very large companies with dozens of thousands or hundred of thousands of employees.
The social effects of this seem to be really good, if you look at quality of life in Switzerland.
If wages at the bottom go up and that causes inflation, the overall impact of that is wage compression, or in other words, reduced income inequality. Which is what we want.
If wages at the bottom go up and that causes inflation, the overall impact of that is wage compression, or in other words, reduced income inequality. Which is what we want.
>reduced income inequality. Which is what we want.
Reducing the PPP of rich people while only maintaining that of poorer people seems like a dubious policy outcome, at least in economic terms.
Reducing the PPP of rich people while only maintaining that of poorer people seems like a dubious policy outcome, at least in economic terms.
That's not how it works. The increase in income in the lower quintile outpaces inflation.
Well, it wouldn't outpace inflation right now, shit is crazy. But usually, yes.
Well, it wouldn't outpace inflation right now, shit is crazy. But usually, yes.
Prices in Switzerland are somewhat similar to or a bit higher (and certainly not 10 times) than the US, except for meat.
Try saying that again after paying 16€ for a kebab in Basel compared to 5€ in Germany, a few kilometres to the east.
There is definitely a difference.
This not accurate. Eating out, for example, is very expensive there, even compared to major cities in the US.
I am not really a restaurant person, but when eating in LA or SF, while the prices were cheaper than Swiss prices, the difference was not huge after factoring in the "mandatory" tipping common in the US.
Interesting, do the swiss eat less meat as a consequence?
While I do agree in principle that rapidly increasing wages leads to price inflation, your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland (most recently was there on Saturday and will spend the next few days there starting tomorrow.)
> your reference does not relate to my experience in Switzerland
Living in Switzerland is clearly way more expensive than living in any of its close neighbors, so please explain me how this is not related to higher wages.
Living in Switzerland is clearly way more expensive than living in any of its close neighbors, so please explain me how this is not related to higher wages.
But... aren't wages in Switzerland also higher than their close neighbours? It's the same thing in Norway - everything seems expensive for visitors, but wages are much higher too.
Yes, and the quality of life for a physical worker is much higher than for someone from the US. What's your point?
Perhaps you should consider that maybe some of those shareholders are your parents whose retirement future depends on those investments?
Perhaps your parents shouldn’t have built their retirement future on the ongoing exploitation of lower class people? Might there be a systemic issue here?
Any kind of retirement future is fundamentally built on the labour of the still-active workforce, and will be for as long as labour is still required in order to produce goods and services. That's just inherent to the concept of retirement itself, no matter how that retirement appears to be funded - those retired people still need to consume stuff that requires workers to produce and they're not working themselves by definition. Every single retiree is taking a cut of the labour productivity of those still working whilst not returning anything, whether that's funded via shareholdings in their pension plan or a state pension scheme or any other form of pension.
More subtly, in the current economy there are basically only two pots that higher real-terms wages for workers can come from: taking from other workers, and taking from the retired. That's because the whole economy has a supply-side crisis in basically everything and does not have the capacity to supply people overall with any more than they already have. All the usual scapegoats, like the super-wealthy, just don't consume enough as a proportion of the global economy that redistributing from them would have an impact on ordinary people. (Often articles attempt to confuse people about this by using definitions of wealthy that include like a third of the US population, or by comparing net worth instead and tricking people into thinking it means consumption by ordinary people could be increased by that amount if it was redistributed.)
More subtly, in the current economy there are basically only two pots that higher real-terms wages for workers can come from: taking from other workers, and taking from the retired. That's because the whole economy has a supply-side crisis in basically everything and does not have the capacity to supply people overall with any more than they already have. All the usual scapegoats, like the super-wealthy, just don't consume enough as a proportion of the global economy that redistributing from them would have an impact on ordinary people. (Often articles attempt to confuse people about this by using definitions of wealthy that include like a third of the US population, or by comparing net worth instead and tricking people into thinking it means consumption by ordinary people could be increased by that amount if it was redistributed.)
How much of that money is made by externalising costs to the society?
Limiting cross-borders money flow is a very good way to keep social contract intact.
Limiting cross-borders money flow is a very good way to keep social contract intact.
So basically, let's keep buying our average quality cars for more money, than allow free trade & importing better quality vehicles from a country that specializes with it?
For some reason, it was the growth of global trade that coincided with the growth of global GDP & the increase of the life quality of the earth population.
For some reason, it was the growth of global trade that coincided with the growth of global GDP & the increase of the life quality of the earth population.
Tax the shit out of imported cars and make sure that local makers actually compete.
It's funny how people cry about CO2 and whatnot. But when it's about trade, suddenly transporting stuff thousands of kilometers is fiiiine.
It's funny how people cry about CO2 and whatnot. But when it's about trade, suddenly transporting stuff thousands of kilometers is fiiiine.
Globalism is coming from the same people that also want open borders for immigration. Should borders be open or closed? (European here, I have no stance on that, Amazon has no retail presence in my country and immigration is almost zero here)
Closed, of course (european too). It destroys capitalist job market by kicking out floor from workers. People ain't willing to do a job for peanuts? How about raising a salary (and automation becoming feasible)? Nah, let's important people who will work for less.
People 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.
They used to be a tool to help the working class in the US.
My parents had good experience with their unions. Every interaction every person I know in my generation has had with them (CWA, UAW, teamsters, railway unions, etc, etc.) has been strongly negative.
The Amazon workers should form a new union if they want representation.
Cards from existing corrupt national unions are definitely a trap. Once enough people sign, they will swoop in to extract dues, bribe politicians on unrelated issues, and alternate between sabotaging Amazon's work environment and negotiating away whatever current benefits the workers get.
People that are good at negotiating union politics will somehow become unfirable, and just stop bothering to do their jobs.
If history repeats itself, the union reps will then work with Amaozn to create an underclass of ununionizable jobs and hire people at minimum wage to do the old $18/hr work, while the union cronies "supervise" for $25+/hr.
My parents had good experience with their unions. Every interaction every person I know in my generation has had with them (CWA, UAW, teamsters, railway unions, etc, etc.) has been strongly negative.
The Amazon workers should form a new union if they want representation.
Cards from existing corrupt national unions are definitely a trap. Once enough people sign, they will swoop in to extract dues, bribe politicians on unrelated issues, and alternate between sabotaging Amazon's work environment and negotiating away whatever current benefits the workers get.
People that are good at negotiating union politics will somehow become unfirable, and just stop bothering to do their jobs.
If history repeats itself, the union reps will then work with Amaozn to create an underclass of ununionizable jobs and hire people at minimum wage to do the old $18/hr work, while the union cronies "supervise" for $25+/hr.
> The Amazon workers should form a new union if they want representation.
They did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Labor_Union
They did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Labor_Union
Strong unions certainly did wonderful things for the working class people of Detroit, Michigan.
Unions 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.
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.
Hold on just to be clear: do you think the problem in Detroit is that the unions weren't powerful enough?
Try listed three potential issues with unions, why did you zoom in on just that one?
To be clear, just read again. I don't claim to be an expert about Detroit's union history by the way.
> Unions can be corrupted or do mistakes
> Unions can be corrupted or do mistakes
>I don't claim to be an expert about Detroit's union history by the way.
Industry in Detroit is a perfect example of what can happen when unions have way too much power. The current conversation really downplays how ridiculously powerful unions like the UAW were. It was effectively impossible to lose your job -- you would have line workers that would bring a portable TV to work and watch their work roll past them all day, and they were able to do that until the plants closed down because of the terms the union had in place. I have multiple drawers of tools from vendors that only ever sold B2B; in my father's time, you would buy them off UAW members that stole them from auto manufacturers in decently large quantities, because you wouldn't get fired for it. The only way to reliably lose your job was to cross the union itself. Even people who were part of a union at that time will pretty readily admit that they were unsustainably powerful. We're not even started on the organized crime that came out of unions in Detroit at that time.
The point isn't that unions shouldn't exist at all. The point is that you need to be really careful with comments like the root comment, which describe unions as the common man engaging in a heroic struggle against the forces of capitalist evil, while completely glossing over what they have become in multiple places at multiple points in history.
Industry in Detroit is a perfect example of what can happen when unions have way too much power. The current conversation really downplays how ridiculously powerful unions like the UAW were. It was effectively impossible to lose your job -- you would have line workers that would bring a portable TV to work and watch their work roll past them all day, and they were able to do that until the plants closed down because of the terms the union had in place. I have multiple drawers of tools from vendors that only ever sold B2B; in my father's time, you would buy them off UAW members that stole them from auto manufacturers in decently large quantities, because you wouldn't get fired for it. The only way to reliably lose your job was to cross the union itself. Even people who were part of a union at that time will pretty readily admit that they were unsustainably powerful. We're not even started on the organized crime that came out of unions in Detroit at that time.
The point isn't that unions shouldn't exist at all. The point is that you need to be really careful with comments like the root comment, which describe unions as the common man engaging in a heroic struggle against the forces of capitalist evil, while completely glossing over what they have become in multiple places at multiple points in history.
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That 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.
And they can still choose it, since unions are not compulsory as far as I know? So what are we discussing about?
They can choose it by quitting only, as the work changes before and after the union. So instead of having the unhappy people quit when they perceive the company as not being good enough for them, the unhappy people create a union and make the happy people quit instead. It's fine either way by me but it feels a bit pointless.
Not 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.
Many rights that everybody enjoys were won by unions and applied to everybody.
You are generalising to all unions some hypothetical case.
Better job opportunities for a part of the population means that all employers need to improve conditions to compete for employees.
Better job opportunities for a part of the population means that all employers need to improve conditions to compete for employees.
Have you ever worked in a union shop, or have family that did? Demarcation is not a hypothetical case, and it's not something that's so uncommon that you can just not worry about it, especially as a worker that needs to consider whether or not your opportunities are going to be hindered by it. Me, my father, my grandfathers, my friends, their fathers and grandfathers, and basically my community on the whole have watched it happen firsthand or have been directly affected by it. Union membership can be a big choice where you're heavily incentivized to join the union not just on the merits of them protecting you as a worker, but because they're going to work against you if you don't. Some unions have worse problems with it than others, and some don't have the problem at all, but it's not something that is so minor that you can just ignore it.
yeah my parents only remember their parents having to move their family farm to a different state due to the trucking union (Teamsters, aka the actual mafia associated group). you know where the business was prior to 1950.. Ferguson outside St Louis where the riots were. So they certainly didn't bring prosperity to the area. There’s a middle history of unions that’s not so nice.
I do think unions had some (modest) benefit but the role of raw economic growth in improving worker rights is often understated.
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Please don't be so naive. Read some labor history. Workers' rights were won in blood. This idea that capitalism somehow magically bestowed rights on workers is absurd and quite insulting.
> 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?
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?
Larger 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.
At 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.
It's slightly more complicated in practice. The US has this weird system where you can opt out of full union membership and become what's called an "objector". You opt out of union membership but still pay a portion of dues (those directly around contract negotiation and the like), and you're still covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The downside being that, as you're not a union member, you generally don't get voting rights.
To quote the NLRB's website directly:
> Federal law allows unions and employers to enter into "union-security" agreements which require all employees in a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired. Employees may choose not to become union members and pay dues, or opt to pay only that share of dues used directly for representation, such as collective bargaining and contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no longer union members, but are still protected by the contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme Court ruling and is known as the Beck right.
This usually works well enough, but in certain circumstances, you can have a small minority control the entire operation and the vast majority are "represented" by an institution they have no voice in. This seems to be the case in lower paid unions (e.g. grocery baggers) because the majority can't afford the extra dues.
To quote the NLRB's website directly:
> Federal law allows unions and employers to enter into "union-security" agreements which require all employees in a bargaining unit to become union members and begin paying union dues and fees within 30 days of being hired. Employees may choose not to become union members and pay dues, or opt to pay only that share of dues used directly for representation, such as collective bargaining and contract administration. Known as objectors, they are no longer union members, but are still protected by the contract. Unions are obligated to tell all covered employees about this option, which was created by a Supreme Court ruling and is known as the Beck right.
This usually works well enough, but in certain circumstances, you can have a small minority control the entire operation and the vast majority are "represented" by an institution they have no voice in. This seems to be the case in lower paid unions (e.g. grocery baggers) because the majority can't afford the extra dues.
Unions are compensated proportional to N*S where N is number of workers and S is average salary. Workers care about increasing S, but unions sometimes focus on increasing N because it is easier. But then the individual worker doesn't see their life improve.
N is also the power to negotiate in that equation in order to improve S. Increasing N makes total sense in that scenario.
Except 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).
The extra money goes to more union staff and union facilities; lobbying; and grants - overwhelming the former. Also, it's not like non-profits have to balance their budgets every year; the UAW added $60M to its net assets in 2021.
> Well, who the hell is in the teachers union if not teachers?
Professional bureaucrats.
Teachers unions in public schools are the worst. They hold our childrens’ futures hostage and get paid out by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.
Professional bureaucrats.
Teachers unions in public schools are the worst. They hold our childrens’ futures hostage and get paid out by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.
My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years. You should try talking with the people you are making claims about. I bet they're very different from what you think.
>>Professional bureaucrats.
>My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years.
Nothing you said really contradicts the parent post's claim that the people working in unions are "Professional bureaucrats". If your mom was working with disabled students for 20 years, then switched to being a bureaucrat for the next 10 years, she's still arguably a "Professional bureaucrat".
>My mom was a negotiator for the teacher's union for about a decade. She was a para-professional, working with disabled students, for about 20 years.
Nothing you said really contradicts the parent post's claim that the people working in unions are "Professional bureaucrats". If your mom was working with disabled students for 20 years, then switched to being a bureaucrat for the next 10 years, she's still arguably a "Professional bureaucrat".
That's not how it worked. The union role took a few hours a month, in addition to her para job. A handful of meetings, usually in evenings after a normal workday. It would never have been considered her primary job, more like a task within her job at the school.
I suspect your Mom is an extra-ordinary super-hero sort, and more power to her. However, here in the Western USA, urban public schools are a disaster -- the bigger the district, the bigger the disaster -- and the union is not innocent in continuing that. no easy answers
100 percent agreed there are no easy answers. I was arguing against the pointless emotional rhetorical garbage like "professional bureaucrats" and "holding children hostage". No, not everything is perfect, but the solution to that is to find and address real problems, not scream stupid insults until everything falls apart.
> They hold our childrens’ futures hostage and get paid out by politicians buying votes, who pass the bill to the next generation.
Are you confusing the school board with the teachers union? One sets curriculum, class size, and budget. The later really only influences salary, benefits, and working hours.
Are you confusing the school board with the teachers union? One sets curriculum, class size, and budget. The later really only influences salary, benefits, and working hours.
States where teacher's unions are allowed to collectively bargain have better teacher pay, less teacher shortages, and better average outcomes. To me this sounds like a lot of privilege from someone that doesn't understand how bad schools can get in areas with very little funding or oversight.
Not to mention that most state/local teachers unions are branches of the NEA/AFT, two of the largest unions in the country. Also, two of the largest political contributors, to strictly left-leaning politicians. Neither are shy about admitting that they support Democrat policies exclusively.
To be fair have you seen republican policies towards teachers and education in general. Of course nobody would ever intentionally pick that for themselves and their profession.
> 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
well, union higher-ups are basically politicians, they're not usually working in the job by that point
How do legislators just allow this? Isn't this cut and dry illegal?
It'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-unio...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1022384731/amazon-warehouse-w...
---
[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-unio...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1022384731/amazon-warehouse-w...
Because legislators historically are less interested in corporate/white collar crime.
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go look up what other illegal union busting behaviors they've gotten away with. and look at democrat or republican behaviors, such as biden actively strike-busting the other day
strike busting public unions is good. we should never recognize public unions. there is no middleman to reduce profits with the government, higher wages means we pay more, there's no "evil capitalist" who will get less instead.
An alternative perspective to look at this is that orgs like USPS are services provided to Americans because they're the kind of services that would otherwise be inaccessible to great majority of Americans. For this reason, increasing the wages and potentially attracting better workers and increasing the morale (and thus performance) of existing workers are beneficial for Americans.
thanks for pointing this out. I definitely agree when it comes to police unions. need to learn more about this situation though
The NLRB[1] is supposed to handle it. I have no idea how they would rule on forcing anti-union propaganda on employees today.
And today's SCOTUS seems to want to defang all government agencies' ability to rule on or enforce . . . anything, really, based on their rulings on the EPA and the SEC. Well, unless it's the government trying to enforce on reservation land - that is newly allowed.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...
And today's SCOTUS seems to want to defang all government agencies' ability to rule on or enforce . . . anything, really, based on their rulings on the EPA and the SEC. Well, unless it's the government trying to enforce on reservation land - that is newly allowed.
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...
If I hazarded a guess, this might have not gone through their legal department first.
They'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.
see also american corporate history of hiring gangsters to break strikes and beat workers, leaving some thugs to catch the blame
Ok, lesson learnt: don't read the comments on any HN story about unions.
Unions and bicycling are two topics that I rarely enjoy reading HN comments about, but here I am.
Why are you surprised that Reddit for Bosses is against unions?
mrits: "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.
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.
The general framework for understanding police unions from a labor perspective is that the primary function of police is to safeguard private property rights, specifically the rights of the owning class. In that sense they are structurally opposed to all other sorts of labor unions, since labor unions threaten the maximal control of owners over the private property used (in conjunction with labor) to generate profit. Police often play a direct role in breaking strikes and harassing organizers, sometimes to the point of physical assault or murder. Police unions are permitted to exist without suppression for this reason: they support the powerful.
Yeah, if you buy into the socialist class conflict theory. But it's pretty obvious that police only protect themselves and the state. They don't care about the private property of rich people any more than it hurts their reputation or the rich people have political connections.
> the rich people have political connections.
This is exactly what happens, though. You don't stay truly rich without a decent chunk of political influence. So, yeah, police protect the private property of those who support that idea most.
This is exactly what happens, though. You don't stay truly rich without a decent chunk of political influence. So, yeah, police protect the private property of those who support that idea most.
Seems like police spend almost all their time dealing with poor people who own almost no valuable property.
In the UK the police are neither allowed to form a union or strike.
Although that's also a bad answer, since their employer (the government) is also a monopoly with even more power than most businesses.
How 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.
You 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.
How 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...
In Germany, police officers, soldiers and (depending on the state) teachers and other sort of public officials swear an oath of office that bans them from strikes ("Beamte").
OTOH they can't be fired, get excellent and cheap health insurance for the entire family, and retirement pay is far beyond the normal pension system, meanwhile the pay increases are often coupled to the results negotiated by unions for equivalent employees.
biden literally just did this yesterday
We just have the masons instead which spans the police, CPS and the entire rest of the legal system.
Been burned big time by that.
Been burned big time by that.
They have a union: The Police Federation. It's true the police in the UK are not allowed to strike.
I think police unions are a bit different for the same reason we don't have a military union.
> people who are actively hurting civilians
Police are civilians too. Using "civilian" in this way is supporting the militarization of police, and is not a good thing.
Police are civilians too. Using "civilian" in this way is supporting the militarization of police, and is not a good thing.
"We care about your privacy but not your rights."
"Please suffer privately on your own."
I 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.
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.
Apparently even that's not working, give they still spam people that other FAANGs would never touch.
If you really cared, cancel your amazon accounts. 148 Prime users upvoted this article.
I 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.
Until Amazon can start treating workers well, it seems to me the best move is not to pay them to abuse people.
Can't we have prime and have people paid sufficiently too?
Perhaps we can. It is certainly easy enough to both cancel Prime service and to resubscribe to it.
If Amazon wasn't such scum, I'd spend a lot more with them...
No 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…
The article has a photo of a slide with the words “don’t sign” on it at the top.
can’t believe i missed that after scrolling through all the images. how do i downvote myself.
this should be illegal.
this should be illegal.
If 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.
If you’re talking about missing the slide title, don’t be so hard on yourself, mistakes happen.
It'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.
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I've been in unions in some really shitty jobs; where I assume the union had no power.
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Why is stevespang's comment flagged as dead?
Shadowbanned, seemed excessive to me. I vouched for it at least.
I 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.
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Unions love card check instead of secret ballots. It's a great intimidation tool.
I’m amazed , with the history, lack of progress, and violence committed by unions, that anyone would ever join one. This ain’t Germany
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.