How Amazon Crushes Unions

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html

by alexrustic • 5 years ago

230 251 5 years ago

satya71• 5 years ago

Missing “How” from title

Amazon managers openly warned recruits that if they liked things comfortable, this would be a difficult, perhaps impossible, job. For customer service representatives, it was difficult to keep up, according to media accounts and labor organizers. Overtime was mandatory. Supervisors sent emails with subject headings like “YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.”

Umm, yikes.

pc864• 5 years ago

Imagine being in a position where you have to choose between putting up with this hostile bullshit or going hungry/evicted.

Most of us here could tell our bosses to f off and either have enough savings for months (or even years), or at the very least get another job within weeks or days. Even having grown up lower-middle class with zero, often negative, extra money, going years without vacation, etc., it's hard to wrap my head around being forced to deal with abusive supervisors and coworkers because the alternative might be homelessness within weeks.

klaudius• 5 years ago

How does someone get into that position? Are public schools so bad that people come out with no marketable unique skills that would give them natural job security?

capableweb10• 5 years ago

Imagine being in a position where you have to choose between putting up with this hostile bullshit or going hungry/evicted.

Yes, this is exactly why we got the idea of unions in the first place. Without unions we would still be forced to work at least 6 days a week, and many more drawbacks. The list is huge of what unions have given us (in Europe at least).

hinkley• 5 years ago

Coworker who lasted two weeks at Amazon before quitting, “I saw a poster that read, ‘You can work, smarter, harder, or longer, but you can’t pick just two.’”

When they called to find out why he wasn’t at work on Sunday, and told him they don’t usually give stock grants to people with such a limited investment in the company, that was the end of it.

If you’ve ever been in the parts of Seattle they’re in, they tend to take up the whole sidewalk. Different coworker called them Amholes. After working a contract there I figured out it isn’t because those people have huge egos. It’s because they’re zombies. Surprised more of them don’t get hit by cars.

reaperducer6• 5 years ago

Supervisors sent emails with subject headings like “YOU CAN SLEEP WHEN YOU’RE DEAD.”

This is what happens when the Silicon Valley startup festishists end up in charge in the real world.

blinding-streak2• 5 years ago

For reference, Amazon's anti-union site:

https://www.doitwithoutdues.com/

andyjohnson04• 5 years ago

Built and hosted on squarespace. Noted.

throwaway53453• 5 years ago

I have to say, I'm kind of creeped out by union dues. It just feels less about workers helping themselves and more like some workers creating a new power structure and job roles that they can enjoy.

user-the-name• 5 years ago

And your suggested way to operate an organisation without money is...?

hasmolo• 5 years ago

without the power afforded by money to the union, it cannot stand up to the company. the dues are functionally an insurance payment for security in your job.

this comment is similar to saying:

i'm kinda creeped out by car insurance payments. it just feels less about protecting other drivers and more about enriching the insurance companies.

you are right that it does create a new power structure and job roles, that's the point of it! the money you pay is also part of the strike pay you'd get back.

ssmiler• 5 years ago

A union is like a democracy, it can be elective where you can naively hope that the elected people will be honest and incorruptible or it can be participative where you must participate in the union in order for it to succeed.

adkadskhj• 5 years ago

Unions are like governments. I am pro big-government (generally), but it is effectively a coordinated power structure. That power structure, like any, can be corrupt/etc.

So i like unions (and have been a member of one), generally, in the same way i like governments. However they need clarity, visibility, and structures to answer to its members. A god-king union is no better than a god-king government.

Imo, they're work. They require care to exist properly, just like governments. But when done right, they're the only source of citizen power in the workforce. Especially in the modern day of mega corporations.

munificent3• 5 years ago

It just feels less about workers helping themselves and more like some workers creating a new power structure and job roles that they can enjoy.

When you have one organized power structure that is using its power to exploit people, the only real way to combat it is with another organized power structure.

Bezoes is worth $196 billion. You're not going to be able to effectively push back against that with bake sales.

chadcmulligan• 5 years ago

Things unions offer with those dues:

Legal support - your boss has done something you disagree with

Strike fund - in the worse case the union uses its savings to support the members for a strike

Full time reps - this is perhaps the one most open to abuse, but in my experience union reps fight for the workers - otherwise they get sacked, they are elected positions.

Pay for legal advice - essential when fighting the big boys

And what you would hope is by paying union dues that your pay rise more than covers the union due.

The fact that amazon is fighting against it so hard, you can only assume its good for workers pay.

Muroo7• 5 years ago

there is a nice answer: https://justdue.it/

capableweb10• 5 years ago

I have to ask as I'm really uncertain and also European, so this whole debate is a bit strange for me.

Is that an ironic website supposed to give the union a boost/shit on Amazon or is this a real attempt on getting people to dislike paying unions their due? I could not help but to laugh at some of the arguments in it, hence my question. It doesn't seem very sincere.

tootie• 5 years ago

Not to excuse Amazon or anything, but absolutely every company in America does this. Most of them don't bother with subterfuge though and just go with threats or firings. And one of our main political parties is vehemently anti-union and keeps winning elections.

rob74• 5 years ago

Yeah, it may be par for the course for your average American company, but it's exceptional for tech companies - then again, most tech companies don't have as many high-supply-low-demand jobs as Amazon (or they "outsource" them, like Uber).

barbazoo• 5 years ago

Obviously not "absolutely every company in America does this", this sounds like an attempt to normalize it.

glasss2• 5 years ago

I know a few small business owners that have said if their staff unionized they would just close the business.

These aren't bad bosses or people who don't know how to run a business. They just know if their staff unionized and the rest of their industry didn't, they wouldn't be able to compete on price or keep the necessary number of staff.

I think it's easier to pick on Amazon or bezos than it is to deal with the political forces that you've mentioned, or come to terms with needing to unionizing a whole industry before it would stop hurting small businesses.

TurningCanadian• 5 years ago

It's in the union's interest to keep the company alive too.

cratermoon7• 5 years ago

people who don't know how to run a business

I submit that if business can't exist without a government subsidy that allows them to pay their employees less than a living wage, then the people running the business do not, in fact, know how to run it.

jhbadger• 5 years ago

That's just an empty threat similar to the threats to do the same if the minimum wage is increased. Every time it happens, businesses adjust.

ncallaway• 5 years ago

but absolutely every company in America does this

This is false.

I own a company, in America, and I'm trying to convince my employees to start a union. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll convince them one day

peer2pay• 5 years ago

I hate Amazon and stories like this make me hate it even more. I stopped ordering anything from them and, if anything, this has actually improved my consumer experience.

Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days. Not shopping at either has definitely raised the average life span and quality of goods in my household.

Now I only wish I could find a way to move all our infrastructure off AWS...

jtdev6• 5 years ago

I've made the same changes in recent months and agree that it's improved my consumer experience significantly. I didn't realize just how much time and energy I was spending sorting through cheap Chinese made junk and counterfeit garbage on Amazon trying to find quality products.

In terms of cloud providers: the major three (Azure, GCloud, AWS) seem to be cut from the same cloth... maybe IBM or Oracle cloud are better options (I don't have any experience with either, but both companies obviously have skeleton filled closets)?

Zelphyr• 5 years ago

IBM’s cloud platform is laughably bad. Avoid at all costs!

_huayra_3• 5 years ago

Well at least one of the latter definitely has skeletons... [0]

But in all seriousness, Oracle at least has very good free tier to get started. You basically get two free okay-provisioned VMs (lite on the CPU to say the least, but mem and desk okay). Very good for self-hosted your own stuff for free!

[0] https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/bl...

musingsole3• 5 years ago

Turning to IBM or Oracle for moral reasons is about the funniest thing I've read in a long time. One enabled the holocaust and the other made 90s-era Microsoft seem downright communist.

noahatwi• 5 years ago

Where do you guys shop now? Genuinely curious.

pc864• 5 years ago

Now I only wish I could find a way to move all our infrastructure off AWS

If only there were competing cloud/PaaS services.

Judgmentality4• 5 years ago

If only they were competitive.

doublerabbit• 5 years ago

If only there was a way to buy your own colocation racks and host it yourself.

nafizh• 5 years ago

Can you elaborate where do you buy things online from? I want to move away from Amazon, but it's also exhausting to sort through multiple websites for a product, their shipping fees, and make decisions.

ldng• 5 years ago

Isn't a bit of "exhaustion" worth to fight back terrible practices ?

Daho0n• 5 years ago

I'm not in the US but to me Amazon is something I use maybe twice a year and I buy a lot online and abroad. I even order stuff from the US sometimes and I don't normally use Amazon (or eBay). I don't get why it is so hard to cut out the middleman (Amazon) when it isn't to me when I order from the US. If I find the product on Amazon I just click on to the retailers website and order there.

wombat-man2• 5 years ago

Walmart and Target have improved their web experience a lot, but you still need to avoid the 3rd party sellers there. If you know the brand and the product, ordering direct also works. I also kind of enjoy shopping irl more since it gets me out of the house and basically everything else is closed due to the Rona. I've heard costco has a great 2 hour delivery experience but I don't have a membership.

The effect of Amazon is that at least for now, there's never been a better time to order things online in general. Every website competes with amazon now. Most places ship fast and cheap/free. Sometimes with a minimum order, but same with amazon's add on items. There are exceptions for sure, and I do occasionally still need to buy a thing on Amazon.

Unless you're really into the prime video selection, I suggest everyone cancel their prime and try life without it. I think I got a prorated refund, and you can always reactivate.

dunnevens2• 5 years ago

Electronics now come to me from Best Buy, Microcenter, and Newegg. Best Buy in particular has faster shipping than Prime. It's frequently overnight for in stock items. At least in my area. And as far as I know, there's no problems with counterfeit goods with them.

Physical books I buy from a small online bookstore I want to support. Oddly enough, they're not much slower than Prime. Even for books not in stock. Plus, they frequently write a nice note, or slip a free zine or custom bookmark into the package. It's a nice touch, and whoever did the packing has equity in the company. They're worker-owned.

Ebooks are still Amazon, though I strip the DRM immediately after purchase so I'm not locked into the Kindle ecosystem. I may try buying a test book from Kobo or Barnes & Noble to see if I can just as easily strip the DRM from them. If so, then I'll probably switch.

Ebay's been good for some stuff. For Pi hobby stuff, I've started buying directly from the various small businesses that specialize. The shipping is longer, but that's not a problem so far.

Some stuff I do buy from Walmart / Sams. They're about as bad as Amazon in many ways, but they do pay their warehouse people a decent wage. Or they did last time I checked. So it's at least marginally better in that respect, and there's not much worry about fake goods from them.

jtdev6• 5 years ago

coctco.com has actually been a good alternative for me. Less selection, sure, but I can usually find everything I actually need. Plus, they seem to treat employees well and aren’t trying to monetize my face/sleep schedule/words/browsing activity/etc.

brundolf3• 5 years ago

This isn't intended to sound braggy: I honestly just don't buy that many non-consumable items? Most years I buy more items as gifts during the holidays than I do for myself the entire rest of the year. This isn't some kind of extreme-frugality thing: I simply can't think of additional things I would want to buy. And most of the purchases I do make are things I put thought into, where I don't mind shopping around a bit or paying a little extra for shipping.

I just really don't understand why people have a hard time giving up Amazon retail, at least when it comes to the majority of HN who can absolutely afford to pay an extra $10 for shipping a few times a year.

BeetleB• 5 years ago

Besides the other answers, you can also find options at shopping.google.com.

ImprovedSilence• 5 years ago

For some things, I try to buy direct. Levis for example. After getting a pair from amazon that was very clearly a factory second or straight up counterfeit, I get them from levis.com. Price is a little higher, but knowing I'm getting good product, and the variety/choice is usually pretty good on their site too. I do this for most "branded" items. Everything else is like best buy or target or home depot etc. That said, I still use amazon quite a bit. But still probably <50% of my online purchases at least. Someone with a more hardline stance or more knowledge of other replacement sites could conceivably cut them out completely. Heck Best Buy and target are so close to my house, I just shop online, and go to curbside pickup an hour later.

franklampard4• 5 years ago

Most stuff you can buy on Amazon these days is the same garbage that is sold on Wish but you pay ~25-50% more for it to come within a couple of days

In my experience, I get most stuff for the same price from other retailers on Amazon, but with fast shipping and the peace of mind that I can return them easily.

Judgmentality4• 5 years ago

If you're buying from Amazon, you're almost definitely getting comingled inventory - which means even the official retailer themselves can't guarantee it's a genuine product.

Your point still stands about easy returns, although personally I've noticed Amazon adding a lot more friction when I have a problem in the past year or so.

https://www.redpoints.com/blog/amazon-commingled-inventory-m...

lisper• 5 years ago

Now I only wish I could find a way to move all our infrastructure off AWS...

I've moved to Linode and never looked back.

[UPDATE] Wow. Downvotes for a shout-out to Linode. Didn't know there was so much Linode hate out there. What's up with that? What's wrong with Linode?

capableweb10• 5 years ago

I'll give you some ideas, but you might already know why as you been around for some time.

- Lack of support for your statement. You simply say that you moved there, not why and what made you move, what's better and so on

- You're complaining about down-votes, leading you into the spiral of downvotes as you'll get more down voted by it

- You're talking bad about AWS and Amazon. HN famously have a ton of AWS/Amazon employees here who are quick to downvote any negative sentiment about AWS/Amazon. No, I don't have any proof, but anything mentioning either in a negative way WILL be downvoted, happened time and time again

jasode• 5 years ago

Wow. Downvotes for a shout-out to Linode. Didn't know there was so much Linode hate out there. What's up with that? What's wrong with Linode?

I didn't downvote your comment but it reminded me of an old comment about Linode which is still a mystery to me:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10999397

To this day, I have no idea what that was about. Does Linode not do backups?!? Is one of the founders a pedophile?!? Whatever it is, is it unmentionable because of fear of lawsuit?!?

christkv• 5 years ago

I'm seeing food delivery places like uber eats, globo etc able to become pickers for local stores (at least here in Europe). Now I only need some way to order online from local stores and have it automatically sent to me via bike courier.

brundolf3• 5 years ago

I honestly can't understand how anybody sleeps at night writing software for Amazon, at this point. Maybe it's easier to justify to yourself if you work at AWS and not directly on the retail side of things, who knows.

I'm not going to try and cast judgement on individuals' circumstances, I just experience genuine confusion that Amazon can (apparently) still attract top-ish talent.

pnutjam• 5 years ago

Walmart has been doing this around here (car not bike). Too bad they will substitute a "similar" item when their stock is not correct, which is always.

The "similar" item is not similar enough in my experience.

bsder• 5 years ago

Um, like, duuuuh. If you're gonna buy cheap Chinese junk, skip the Amazon middleman and go straight to Alibaba.

With so many "Amazon" sellers just rebranding cheap Chinese stuff, it really is better to just go backward in the chain. I suspect that you probably get fewer "counterfeits" since you are looking for "Thing that does <X>" instead of "Brand <Y> thingit."

spaetzleesser• 5 years ago

Stuff like this always comes to mind when the media celebrates the richest people in the world. This often comes at the expense of low level employees who do dangerous and underpaid work so a few guys can become very rich. And the worse they treat these employees the more the rich guys get celebrated.

That’s why the slogan “run the government like a business” doesn’t work. It would mean to ignore the weakest in society (maybe lay them off?) for the benefit of a few at the top.

Chris204810• 5 years ago

who do dangerous and underpaid work so a few guys can become very rich

If it's underpaid, why do it? If you do it, what makes it "under" paid?

By taking the job, you confirm the wage is right.

comrh• 5 years ago

This naively assumes the person has a choice of other opportunities and that the those other jobs aren't also underpaid.

charlesu2• 5 years ago

Because the alternative is to starve?

You can take advantage of people when they’re in dire straits. That’s not indicative of some greater truth about the price of labor but a fact of exploitation.

bena7• 5 years ago

I don't like that thinking. It ignores radical power imbalances.

If I, or a group I'm a part of, controls the majority of the resources, we get to decide allocation of those resources without regard to any other consideration than what we would part with.

So if you go to an area with high unemployment where the businesses only offer at most $5/hr, you can also offer $5/hr even for jobs critical to your business.

i_haz_rabies2• 5 years ago

This is the sort of thinking that erodes the ground underneath society.

capableweb10• 5 years ago

Programmers say things like "By taking the job, you confirm the wage is right." and then wonder why everyone thinks programmers are emotionally cold.

Yes, by pure math and market economics, I guess you might be right. But by hearth, I'm sure even you realize that it's not that black and white in reality.

antihero• 5 years ago

Because you are desperate and need to pay rent and eat. This is how exploitation worked. If everyone was economically free enough, Amazon managers would be laughed all the way to the door.

reaperducer6• 5 years ago

By taking the job, you confirm the wage is right.

I see you've never been poor. I have. Sometimes you take any job, no matter the wage, just to keep the wolves at bay and food on the table.

donovanian2• 5 years ago

It would mean to ignore the weakest in society (maybe lay them off?) for the benefit of a few at the top.

As though almost all the unprecedented levels of pandemic relief in the US haven’t gone to anything but people that need relief.

xmprt2• 5 years ago

A lot of the early pandemic relief went to large corporations looking for cheap loans.

jdasdf2• 5 years ago

I don't get it, why do workers need to vote in order to start/join a union?

Why would the company care if they do join a union? Can't they simply refuse to negotiate with the union?

andyjohnson04• 5 years ago

"Your Right to Form a Union

"Not represented by a union, but want to be? If a majority of workers wants to form a union, they can select a union in one of two ways: If at least 30% of workers sign cards or a petition saying they want a union, the NLRB will conduct an election. If a majority of those who vote choose the union, the NLRB will certify the union as your representative for collective bargaining. An election is not the only way a union can become your representative. Your employer may voluntarily recognize a union based on evidence - typically signed union-authorization cards - that a majority of employees want it to represent them. Once a union has been certified or recognized, the employer is required to bargain over your terms and conditions of employment with your union representative. Special rules apply in the construction industry."

https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/whats-law

That's in the US obviously.

jdasdf2• 5 years ago

Once a union has been certified or recognized, the employer is required to bargain over your terms and conditions of employment with your union representative.

Oh. So once again bad laws cause the whole problem...

cestith4• 5 years ago

One person can join a union. They might, depending on the union, get extra insurance or legal representation or some other benefit not tied to negotiation with the employer. A one-person strike is generally considered a resignation, though. One core function of a union is as a collective bargaining group. It's difficult to collectively bargain when your collection is one person.

munificent3• 5 years ago

Why would the company care if they do join a union?

The fundamental goal of a union is to force executives at a company to do things that benefit workers that they wouldn't otherwise do.

Can't they simply refuse to negotiate with the union?

If the union has a small enough fraction of their employee base as members such that they company can afford the productivity loss of a strike, yes. Once a large enough fraction of workers are in the union, the threat of a strike puts enough pressure on executives that it is in their best interest to negotiate.

pibechorro• 5 years ago

Good. Unions ultimately get entangled with regulators and its harmful for everyone. Look no further than public school teachers, getting paid, refuse to work. Meanwhile private school teachers have been working.. if you hate working at Amazon, quit.

dybber• 5 years ago

Your experience with unions seems very limited, please read about unions in countries where the system isn't broken.

andrew_3• 5 years ago

Unfortunately we're discussing unions forming in a country where there are a lot of issues with dysfunctional unions, and some less than stellar, high-profile history. It will be impossible to dismiss that when having the discussion when the context is within the United States.

BitwiseFool2• 5 years ago

The challenge I have with looking at unions in countries that 'do it right', so to speak, is that the union Amazon employees are looking to make will end up being an American-style union.

franklampard4• 5 years ago

For example?

js2• 5 years ago

Minimally, public sector unions should be discussed separately from private sector unions. FDR warned against the former:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/letter-the-resolut...

gegtik• 5 years ago

unions are corrupt, wasteful, and the only organization that is structurally aligned with workers despite all those drawbacks. Your boss is not your friend, and you are only one person. you lose.

cratermoon7• 5 years ago

Unions ultimately get entangled with regulators

Oh? Show me one major regulatory body in the US that has as many union leaders running it as it does leaders from the industries it regulates.

andrew_3• 5 years ago

What I don't see mentioned in the article are right-to-work states. While still effective to a degree, unions tend to have much less bite in these states. I'm left to wonder if Amazon would have the heft/ability to simply relocate all manual labor to states with right-to-work as law, or if that kind of move would be outside of union-busting laws.

cratermoon7• 5 years ago

simply relocate all manual labor to states with right-to-work as law

You can't really relocate warehouses and shipping centers without throwing a wrench in the logistics of the supply chain, especially if you are in the next-day delivery business.

andrew_3• 5 years ago

I've worked several years in the logistics sector and watched as that happened several times during inclement weather cycles. The logistics supply chain is much more nimble than you might think.

cestith4• 5 years ago

Alabama is a right to work state. Amazon is telling people at the Bessemer warehouse that they could be forced to pay union dues whether or not they join the union, which is not true under Alabama law.

Shivetya• 5 years ago

However the US Congress is pushing the PRO Act which will basically force you to join any union and it actually forbids right to work laws. It will even permit unions marching against related businesses as a means to intimidate others; in others say your supplier has issues well they can then march on you and vica versa.

Welcome to the pay off for the election

sct202• 5 years ago

They used to avoid certain states for reasons like that (also sales tax), but now that they're going for same day or 1 day delivery it isn't feasible to do that anymore. For example, Amazon didn't have any warehouses in Illinois until 2014.

pjmlp5• 5 years ago

Fortunely crushing unions is not a legal in many countries.

As for everyone that gives money to Amazon, and praises their FOSS offerings, this is what evil companies do in practice.

capableweb10• 5 years ago

Fortunely crushing unions is not a legal in many countries.

Unfortunately, some companies like Amazon seems to simply include "break labor laws" on their balance statements in the end of the year, as they keep breaking the laws in order to save short-term costs.

pjmlp5• 5 years ago

That only works as long as no one reports them to the respective goverment departments.

HenryBemis• 5 years ago

From the article, the link to the image/"Notice":

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/03/03/business/00amazon...

I don't know who signed it (I can read the name "Belinda").. whoever signed it though must have felt a great amount of shame for representing that company.

ArkanExplorer• 5 years ago

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foo...

"a “diversity index” represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity"

Invictus0• 5 years ago

Wow, that is wild. Truly divide (on racial boundaries) and conquer.

elisbce• 5 years ago

Like the unions didn't already destroy America's auto industry. Now they want to do the same to the tech industry. Supervisors can't talk directly with union workers, they have to go through unions first. Who on earth think this is a good idea? It kills productivity and I'm not even talking about the foreseeable protests down the road. Unions don't work in tech business where you need to break rules and move fast. It kills the big corporations in a few years and subsequently kills the entire job market that it was meant to protect. Ask the residents in Detroit. Now they have no jobs, or jobs with half of the pay before. Happy now?

capableweb10• 5 years ago

where you need to break rules and move fast

Dude, we tried this. Now people in the US can't have reasonable arguments in public without wanting to kill one another. People somehow gets "cancelled" now, because some 20s-something wanted to "move fast" without thinking of the consequences.

Maybe it's time we try "slow and steady" and see if the world actually ends up more equal and diverse, instead of the opposite, which is the direction we're heading now.

And for the record, if unions hadn't existed, you'd still be slaving away 6 days a week (minimum), 10 hours a day, your children would be working instead of going to school and everything labor related would certainly have been worse. Worth considering since you seem to hold the opinion that "all unions are bad" just because the US is shitty at creating and maintaining unions.

PoignardAzur• 5 years ago

Dude, we tried this. Now people in the US can't have reasonable arguments in public without wanting to kill one another.

Best answer.

(don't think unions would have changed anything on that point though)

skynet-9000• 5 years ago

if unions hadn't existed, you'd still be slaving away 6 days a week (minimum), 10 hours a day, your children would be working instead of going to school and everything labor related would certainly have been worse.

This is not historically accurate.

For example, Henry Ford actually increased wages (without worrying about unions, and he had literal enforcers to bully people.)

He claimed to be doing it for altruistic reasons, and so that workers in his plants could afford a Ford, but the real reason was because he had to, because people could choose to work elsewhere, even if they had to move. Also, he attracted people from other cities and states to move to Dearborn.

This is the real antidote to union-busting and union-towns. Any job that basically needs a person can always be paid minimally, but multiple employers have to compete for that person; perhaps an alternative job is far away, but mobile people will always be worth more because their market is larger. It was a bit different 150 years ago during the Industrial Revolution, because of information asymmetry and the cost of relocation.

So why form a union? Just get a better job from an employer that literally values you more. It's not like these companies don't exist.

xwolfi2• 5 years ago

For the kill each other, it's really a deep deep issue in education. Nothing to do with anything else really. You have to educate kids into a sort of national unity thinking.

I come from France, and we're not perfect, far from it. But I was raised, not so long ago, to tolerate very diverging opinions. I enjoy debating calmly with communists, nationalists, muslims or europeanists. As long as we agree France comes first, our little divergences second, I stay polite and agree to disagree. After all, they may be right, and I wrong, so I just discuss to gain perspective.

What I see in US debates is that everything seems so existential. Hearing someone disagree is so painful and deeply disturbing, on both sides (there seems to be only 2, another problem), that people I see debate seem to forget that end of the day, they and their descendants will have to live together forever. Better embrace the fact it's done and final, and start finding little ways to be nice about it.

cheezymoogle• 5 years ago

While I'm sympathetic to the argument that the rise of social media has contributed to the absolute degeneration of public discourse, blaming social media as the cause rather than the means strikes me as particularly hollow when measured by previous historical periods of civil unrest. Whatever the actual causes--nascent technological catalysis, changing property relations or elite culture, or whatever the God's-eye picture of its real etiology--this phenomena is recurring throughout human history. Sometimes mobs (viz. mass-movements, factions, parties) form and mobs, like houses, cannot stand divided. Competing mobs become one mob or destroy each other.

Consider this letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge in 1797:

"The passions are too high at present to be cooled in our day. You and I have formerly seen warm debates and high political passions. But gentlemen of different politics would then speak to each other, and separate the business of the senate from that of society. It is not so now. Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the streets to avoid meeting, and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch their hat. This may do for young men, with whom passion is enjoiment. But it is afflicting to peaceable minds."^1

Or Jefferson's retrospective of the 1800 election:

"we suffered ourselves, as you so well expressed it, to be the passive subjects of public discussions. and these discussions, whether relating to men, measures, or opinions, were conducted by the parties with an animosity, a bitterness, and an indecency, which had never been exceeded. All the resources of reason, and of wrath, were exhausted by each party in support of its own, and to prostrate the adversary opinions. one was upbraided with recieving the Antifederalists, the other the old tories & refugees into their bosom. of this acrimony the public papers of the day exhibit ample testimony in the debates of Congress, of state legislatures, of stump-orators, in addresses, answers, and newspaper essays. and to these without question may be added, the private correspondence of individuals; and the less guarded in these, because not meant for the public eye, not restrained by the respect due to that; but poured forth from the overflowings of the heart into the bosom of a friend, as a momentary easement of our feelings. in this way, and in answers to addresses, you & I could indulge ourselves. we have probably done it, sometimes with warmth, often with prejudice, but always, as we believed, adhering to truth. I have not examined my letters of that day. I have no stomach to revive the memory of it’s feelings."^2

This is not unique to America or even to modernity. A broad reading of history shows that any human society, given enough time, will encounter periods when the stars align and there's a general degradation of civility, sometimes erupting in bloodshed, sometimes being remembered as a generally unpleasant time not to be spoken about.

The problems with American culture in particular being reduced to increasingly hostile and superficial tribal allegiances have antecedents dating back decades, well before AOL was even a thing.^4 The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1985 enabled one-sided echo chambers to emerge via all extant communications media (notable in particular is the emergence of conservative talk radio like Rush Limbaugh).^5

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."^6

---

1 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-29-02-0...

2 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6076

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts

4 http://txti.es/technorealism

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

wcfields• 5 years ago

And trade policy and inferior products didn't play a role, it's all labors fault?

tr3ndyBEAR• 5 years ago

There's no such thing as an auto company that doesn't depend on government subsidies. The auto industry is up there with agriculture as one of the most dependent on governments subsidizing them for them to even exist

If improving worker safety (in this case, literally saving hundreds of lives each year) and paying workers a living wage makes your already heavily subsidized company go bust, maybe the company shouldn't have existed in the first place?

Worker's health shouldn't be an economic externality

apexalpha• 5 years ago

"Supervisors can't talk directly with union workers, they have to go through unions first."

Is this actually the case? Because this seems like a childish caricature of unions. Could you point me to examples where unions actually implemented this and why?

kaesar14• 5 years ago

The auto industry died because it got outcompeted by the Japanese auto industry, which is also unionized.

xwolfi2• 5 years ago

I think nobody would disagree to have Japanese unions in the US.

HelloNurse• 5 years ago

You seem to be confusing Amazon the dotcom, where smart people advance the state of the art of web infrastructure, and Amazon the parcel-sending concern, where the duration of restroom breaks of minimum-wage warehouse workers is aggressively monitored.

afavour• 5 years ago

Supervisors can't talk directly with union workers, they have to go through unions first.

I've never heard of this before. The idea that a supervisor cannot talk to a unionized employee at all is extreme, to say the least. Having the union there during disciplinary hearings? Sure. All meetings?

Do you have any examples?

LarryDarrell• 5 years ago

I know I shouldn't, but this is beautiful. You've taken every low-understanding drunk-uncle anti-union take and have written some true troll poetry.

This historical perspective is so shallow, and your understanding of the motivation of those involved is so one sided that it's hard to think of anything that might let some light in.

I'll try. Years ago Business owners so mistreated their workers that the workers decided to form unions. This was not easy, as nobody was really on the side of the workers. So it made it easy to bash their heads in. It took many years of many people risking and losing their lives and livelihoods until public support turned towards the strikers. Finally places like Ford had to negotiate rather than curbstomp[1].

This was a win. Rather than relying on the arbitrary benevolence of various ownerships, we codified the 40 hour workweek, overtime, vacation days and sick leave among other things.

Then WWII happened, and the US was the only industrialized nation that was left unscathed. That meant the world wanted to buy our products because for the most part, we were the only ones making products at all. This is the beginning and end of a lot of Americans understanding of our economy and our place in the world. It's why Reagan and Trump were successful with the "Let's / Make America Great Again" mantra.

Because we decided to kill ourselves to be anti-communist, we decided to have very favorable trade policies for places we were formerly at war with, like Japan. That meant we rolled out the red carpet for those cheap little imports. Unions had nothing to do with this.

US automakers did not take the foreign competition seriously. They were too busy trying to defend leaded gasoline and trying to destroy Ralph Nader's reputation because he suggested we have seatbelts. Unions had nothing to do with this either.

The 70's happened. The previously decimated world economies were rebuilt and ready to compete. Americans started to buy more stuff from overseas. Oil became scarce. Stupid self-owns by the US Auto manufacturers gave American cars a reputation for being shit. For one thing, they were so damn heavy that components would break faster. A heavy V8 has more stuff to fail than a little inline four. Again, Unions were not the ones designing the cars.

No one in Detroit blames the Unions. Except maybe historically illiterate managers and engineers. I know, I used carry their golf clubs and clean their boats. Everyone else typically blames NAFTA, consumers buying imports, and the management/ownership of the Big 3.

But here we are. Big companies can outsource. Private Equity can pillage. Agriculture and the meat industry can hire migrant workers with little impediment. But unions are bad because once in awhile a manager has to wait because of work-rules. Or every once in awhile a steward will get busted for corruption. Or "there's this guy who shows up drunk and they can't fire him." I know a drunk incompetent guy who can't get fired too. He makes $500k and is a nephew of a billionaire. Every charge in a unions-are-bad screed can usually be turned around right back at the management/ownership class.

...

This article was about the distribution side of Amazon. Not tech. That being said, I program for a living. I get paid pretty well because I don't move fast and I don't break things. Tech professionals need at least a professional guild. But, they think they are special so they will squander the era when they actually have organizing power.

...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Overpass

gavin_gee• 5 years ago

For any business running at scale, this is a math problem. if the cost of human labor rises, more investment will be made to remove humans from the process and replace them with technology. Amazon was one of the great employers through Coronavirus. Perhaps people should think one step ahead.

munificent3• 5 years ago

Thinking one step ahead is a luxury afforded to people whose current step has them safe, healthy, and able to put food on the table.

EliRivers4• 5 years ago

Mr. Hough (pronounced Huff) was in a hospital having knee surgery when Amazon called and said he had used up his medical leave.

This. WTF. I hear this sort of thing and it's always a surprise, no matter how many times I hear it. Like that bullshit about being allocated a certain number of sick days. Like they're basically holiday days, but you can only use them when you're sick. I guess this then means that if you're sick, you're more likely to lose your job and as a bonus in the fucked up nightmare I'm describing, lose your employer-provided access to healthcare. It's like someone set out to deliberately create a system where minor misfortunes amplify to life-ruining catastrophe; instead of a system that catches people, a system that does just the opposite.

ipsocannibal• 5 years ago

The union drive Amazon is truely scared of is not of warehouse workers, its of their very hard to replace, highly skilled tech workers. FC workers are on the path to elimination through reliance on robotics. The last steps to full automation, automating picking and packing, are being chipped away by new boxing machines for example. Amazon currently estimates it could have the tech to fully automate all FC's in about 10 years. However, Amazon knows that if FC workers can beat them then other groups are soon to follow, groups with much more education, resources, political connections, and leverage. This is why they fired Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa over their tweats. They needed to show tech workers that if you publically support FC workers in their drive for better working conditions you will be fired. If you want to really bring Amazon to heel then unionize the tech workers.

Refs: 1. https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-reportedly-uses-boxing-mach...

2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-warehouse-idUS...

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/13/amazon-...

How Amazon Crushes Unions

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