Amazon loses effort to install camera to watch counting of ballots in union vote

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/30/amazon-loses-effort-to-install-camera-to-watch-ballot-box-in-union-vote.html

by koolba • 5 years ago

227 178 5 years ago

dzonga• 5 years ago

one of those times, you wish every working man knew what efforts are made into bursting unions. And then reflect internally, are unions bad for a company to put in such an effort to keep their works unorganized.

once unions disappeared in america, the working man lost wages, political representation and so on.

lnanek2• 5 years ago

once unions disappeared in america, the working man lost wages

I've worked the same role in union shops and non-union before. Non-union paid more and had less deadbeat co-workers to navigate around. Depends on your profession and skills, honestly. Probably a benefit for amazon pick and drop workers.

Really sucks at mixed union and non-union tech companies, though. At my current company programmers aren't even allowed to move our own computer between desks because only union people are allowed to do that, and getting the union people to do it will take over a week and be done at an inconvenient time interrupting work.

babelfish• 5 years ago

At non-union shops it's not like you can move your desk wherever you want either, most offices without hot desks have a floor plan and an office manager who all seating changes go through. Don't blame the union for that.

cblackthornekc2• 5 years ago

At my current company programmers aren't even allowed to move our own computer between desks because only union people are allowed to do that

This is also likely an insurance limitation as well. Where I work most employees are insured for basic injuries on site. Only those required to move equipment have the add on that they might move equipment weighing 50 lbs or more.

So if I move a desk that weighs 51 pounds and throw out my back, getting work to pay for it might be difficult because I should have gotten facilities to do it as they have the heavy weight add on.

jstanley• 5 years ago

are unions bad for a company to put in such an effort to keep their works unorganized.

It's completely plausible that unions are bad for both employers and employees.

simion3142• 5 years ago

Only a good union example will invalidate your argument, maybe check history and find such a good example then attempt to reformulate some valid hypothesis or try something not that easy to disprove.

While you try to find some bad example of unions and show us how they ruined some companies consider that I will respond with similar examples where the CEO and the board did even worse stuff - so maybe we skip the examples comments and we can conclude that there can be bad unions and bad CEOs (or board/whatever), the main difference is that one group controls a lot of money and can create a lot of PR to present the other group as evil.

beaner2• 5 years ago

This is exceptionally hilarious considering the Washington Post's (Bezos' paper) perspective on voter fraud this last presidential election.

jaywalk2• 5 years ago

But at least this time it fits with their fairly new "Democracy Dies in Darkness" tagline.

jamesgreenleaf• 5 years ago

There are a number of ways you can read that tagline.

_red• 5 years ago

Maybe WP will run an article stating that workers from Walmart should be allowed to vote in their election...

josefresco• 5 years ago

perspective on voter fraud

What's their perspective exactly?

beaner2• 5 years ago

That even questioning whether it may be happening is itself a fascist assault on democracy.

dheera3• 5 years ago

Honestly I don't understand why we can't have cameras installed at ALL voting-related facilities.

stuaxo• 5 years ago

In this case Amazon would be seeing who was voting.

ddoolin3• 5 years ago

It's not secret apparently:

During this portion, the NLRB will read off each voter’s name and both sides will be allowed to contest ballots, likely based on factors such as whether an employee’s job title entitles them to vote or an illegible signature. Any contested ballots will be set aside.

jaywalk2• 5 years ago

That's not what the article says.

It says that the cameras would "keep an eye on the ballot boxes in the off hours between counting" which seems... perfectly reasonable to me.

aeturnum3• 5 years ago

An important aspect of voting systems is that, while you want to authenticate that each voter is allowed to vote, you also want strong protections against discovering who voted for who. I understand why it seems like cameras would be a good idea, but it's very easy to imagine how such a system could be abused.

Can you tell a camera's field of view by looking at it? Could your grandparents? Trusting systems that secure the vote is much easier when they are designed resist being changed to abet oppression.

WalterBright5• 5 years ago

That's why you have voting booths. Voter goes in booth with ballot, closes curtain, comes out with ballot, ballot goes in counting machine. That way, you can:

1. verify who is voting

2. verify trail from voter to count

3. no extra votes

4. no discarded votes

mschuster912• 5 years ago

you also want strong protections against discovering who voted for who.

You also want protection against discovering who voted at all!

hef198982• 5 years ago

Because in order to be democratic, an election has to be fair, free and secret. That's why I am always a little bit disturbed with signed ballots for example. I never signed a paper ballot in my whole life. Or any other ballot as far as that is concerned.

Cameras would limit the secret part.

ddoolin3• 5 years ago

Doesn't anyone have an idea of the likelihood of this passing?

tyingq• 5 years ago

I do enjoy the irony of Amazon being paranoid about a little box and what might be happening inside it.

vmception2• 5 years ago

remember that for your stand up session, tech world could use some light humor at the conferences this year

hpfr• 5 years ago

Isn’t this dark humor? :P

jl27185• 5 years ago

Imagine a world where cryptography doesn’t exist, so we have to trust volunteers to hand-count easily-forged pieces of paper.

jayd163• 5 years ago

Cryptography won't help if you want a secret ballot.

uncoder0• 5 years ago

Couldn't you use something like monero but, I guess then you couldn't audit it.

drdaeman• 5 years ago

Not true, there's a lot of research into voting systems that provide both secrecy and various verifiabilities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...

tsimionescu2• 5 years ago

Votes are anything but easily forged, they are in fact quite trivial to secure.

What IS easily forged and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to secure is a result printed out by some opaque computer that is running a huge amount of software on an extremely complex processor which runs its own closed-source firmware, probably communicating over the internet 'securely' to some other computers.

jl27185• 5 years ago

Oh yeah because we don’t use software at all in the current system.

inglor_cz• 5 years ago

After spending some years in development of cryptographic software, I became an ardent fan of not-so-easily forged pieces of paper. (Try counterfeiting modern banknotes. NOT easy.)

Cryptographic software is tricky, very easy to implement incorrectly or with major security gaps, completely opaque to the amateur user, vulnerable to all kinds of zero-days and possibly even progress in mathematics (God save us from the day when someone comes with a fast factorization algorithm). If secure enough, it will be burdensome enough that people will try to circumvent it. It runs on a stack of OSes and hardware that may (read: of course they do) have fatal security flaws rendering your secure app insecure.

No, thanks. Give me a paper ballot any day.

jl27185• 5 years ago

You’re saying that it is possible for a cryptographic system to be insecure. I’m saying that it’s impossible for human counting to be secure.

Protocol: Alice and Bob send their votes to Eve. Eve wins. The end.

tomschlick• 5 years ago

https://xkcd.com/2030/

jl27185• 5 years ago

There are people who are experts in cryptography, and there are people who are experts in rigging elections. The author of this comic is neither.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 5 years ago

No idea about the camera (there's lively discussion here about that already), but the other measures like sealing the ballot boxes and restricting/auditing access all sound like "make sure the results won't be contentious".

It's totally in Amazon's interest (but also in the interest of anyone who wants a fair vote) to avoid any doubt/claims about tampering.

bellyfullofbac• 5 years ago

Well, from a strategic point of view, if you think you're on the losing side, wouldn't it make more sense to create doubts about the procedure? Then you can scream "Rigged election!"...

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 5 years ago

On the company side? Not necessarily. Having a union "peacefully" is probably better than having a union while screaming about rigged elections, creating strife and chaos within your own company.

Companies' union-busting attempts are often the best advertising a union can wish for.

JumpCrisscross2• 5 years ago

if you think you're on the losing side, wouldn't it make more sense to create doubts about the procedure?

If you think you're on the winning side, you'd also want the results to be unimpeachable.

BurningFrog2• 5 years ago

If you think you're on the losing side, and have access to the room where the ballots are stored, you would definitely want cameras banned there.

PragmaticPulp3• 5 years ago

Apparently the union and Amazon were both granted the ability to have four observers present during the counting. Amazon wanted wanted to watch the ballot box itself (not the votes or counts or ballots) during off hours so both parties can confirm that it wasn't tampered with.

Amazon had sought to place a video camera in the NLRB’s Birmingham office, where votes will be tabulated, to keep an eye on the ballot boxes in the off hours between counting, according to an NLRB order denying Amazon’s request. The camera feed would have been accessible by both Amazon and the RWDSU.

That doesn't sound as nefarious as the headline suggests. In fact, it seems strange that the secure ballot box would be deliberately stored somewhere without security cameras.

mschuster912• 5 years ago

In fact, it seems strange that the secure ballot box would be deliberately stored somewhere without security cameras.

I've been a voting official a couple of times in Germany. Here, the ballot boxes (which are literal trash cans, just in a different color) get loaded with everything (ballots, tabulation aids, even the pencils) at the end of the day and sealed off, then over night left behind in the room where the election and counting happens (usually a school classroom), and at the beginning of the next day we verify the seals haven't been tampered with, unload the cans and continue counting.

PragmaticPulp3• 5 years ago

Amazon requested similar measures, including tamper-proof tape:

According to the motion, Amazon asked that the NLRB change or reset the security locks to the storage room’s door where the ballots will be held, provide Amazon and the RWDSU with an electronic or physical log of when the storage room door is opened during the counting process and use tamper proof tape on the ballot boxes or storage room door to “ensure no unauthorized access to the envelopes, ballot boxes, or storage room occurs.”

These measures seem rather basic and in the interest of both sides, to be honest. It's strange that there's so much resistance.

smsm4210• 5 years ago

I can't think of a valid reason why one would object to having a camera over the box, unless they intend to tamper with it. I mean, I can understand objections to installing cameras where there might be privacy or ballot secrecy issues. But the box doesn't have privacy and it won't reveal anyone's ballot's content - so why the objection?

lvs3• 5 years ago

It's the federal agency itself that you're accusing of impropriety here.

SolarNet• 5 years ago

Because it will cost the taxpayer more?

dillondoyle• 5 years ago

Because it adds yet another layer of Amazon is watching you... They've done everything they can to intimidate these employees.

To be fair though, this sounds like it's more of a storage box for NLRB to count incoming mail ballots.

But that's still an unnecessary step one has to ask why. Does amazon really think some government agency or a union will break in watergate style or tamper with votes on something this nationally important?

And the ballots themselves might be identifiable? I'm not sure if the envelopes have return addresses or there are names/signatures on the ballots themselves. There are already observers watching for each side - maybe an HD camera can see and record PII whereas a human can't?

dbuder• 5 years ago

Because they have a massive amount of data and compute and could and would compile a list of who voted for what, or will attempt to.

jcrawfordor2• 5 years ago

I think it's important to understand, for this decision, the context of the election process. Secret ballot union elections are conducted not by the employer or the union, but actually by the NLRB itself, a federal agency. These elections are carried out according to specifications and requirements produced by NLRB as administrative law.

So consider that Amazon's request for security measures beyond what the NLRB has previously found necessary will increase the time and cost for NLRB to run the election... it seems likely to me that the NLRB would reject the request simply because they feel it to be unnecessary and to impose additional complexity and cost on the NLRB (and thus potentially the taxpayer).

omegaworks• 5 years ago

We saw the impact of FUD spreading around the November Presidential election on January 6th, I'm curious to see what kind of impact a a similar effort will have on the NLRB vote.

nine_k2• 5 years ago

Won't Amazon cover 100% of the cost, including whatever incidental costs?

Adding a camera to a room is not rocket science, it's a 1-hour project at worst, after which the camera operates unobtrusively.

I bet this is more of a turf war, a demonstration of status.

manicdee2• 5 years ago

The ballot box is stored in a secure building.

Are the Union or Amazon going to break into the offices of a federal agency to deposit fake votes or otherwise tamper with the ballot box?

Doesn’t the security of the building contribute to the security of the ballot?

nine_k2• 5 years ago

This assumes honesty of every agency's officer, and lack of negligence along the entire chain leading to the box.

I want to believe, but an extra check won't hurt. Whether the extra check offered by Amazon may be seen as impartial is another question.

MuffinFlavored2• 5 years ago

That doesn't sound as nefarious as the headline suggests.

Why rule against it if it isn't a big deal? When is "too much security" a bad thing?

ralusek2• 5 years ago

I mean, a police officer in every bedroom wouldn't be great. Not saying that applies here, just thought your question was a strange hypothetical.

WalterBright5• 5 years ago

There must be a secure audit trail from the voter to the final tally. That's how public trust in the result is garnered.

bluGill4• 5 years ago

There have been cases in the past where someone did a vote for me or [some violent act that they were capable of following up on]. The audit trail needs to break someplace between the individual voter and the actual vote they cast. We still need a good trail to believe that all votes were counted correctly, only people who should vote voted, and nobody voted more than they were allowed. This is a hard problem.

AdmiralAsshat• 5 years ago

During this portion, the NLRB will read off each voter’s name and both sides will be allowed to contest ballots, likely based on factors such as whether an employee’s job title entitles them to vote or an illegible signature. Any contested ballots will be set aside.

What kind of job title would disqualify an employee from being allowed to vote to unionize?

kmeisthax• 5 years ago

Presumably being in management.

PragmaticPulp3• 5 years ago

The union isn't a blanket union for all Amazon employees. It only covers about 5,800 employees who want to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).

An AWS engineer casting a vote for the warehouse workers to unionize would be invalid, for example.

tzs• 5 years ago

Engineers in the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union seems absurd, but strange things like that can happen.

For example, a lot of engineers in aerospace and defense (including software engineers) were members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of American (UBC).

That came about because when Howard Hughes built the Spruce Goose he hired a bunch of UBC labor. They only built one Spruce Goose, but as the company did other things, many of those workers stayed, and UBC continued to represent them. When Hughes started Hughes Aircraft, more workers turned to UBC to represent them.

As late as 2000, Local 1553 of UBC was still representing all kinds of engineers at various companies that have arisen out of the various splits and mergers that the Hughes companies have been involved in. I don't know if that is still the case.

There's something funny about satellites and missiles, which are about as far from wood-based projects as you can get, being built by people represented by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners. But then there is "Japan developing wooden satellites to cut space junk" [1], so maybe it isn't so funny after all.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55463366

dragonwriter• 5 years ago

What kind of job title would disqualify an employee from being allowed to vote to unionize?

Managers and supervisors, generally, including when supervision (including just giving out work assignments with some degree of discretion) is a relatively small part of the worker's job.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/employee-...

renata• 5 years ago

You are not allowed to be in an NLRB-recognized union if you are any kind of manager or supervisor (I believe the exact legal definition is having hiring and hiring power).

BurningFrog2• 5 years ago

    “The people who cast the votes decide nothing; the people who count the votes decide everything”

        --- Usually attributed to Joseph Stalin

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stalin-vote-count-quote/

mariodiana• 5 years ago

Voter fraud is rare. I think I read that in the Washington Post.

mullingitover• 5 years ago

The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation actually has an extensive database of voter fraud, and while they try to make a big deal about the number of cases that have been found, the unwritten fact is that the rate is infinitesimally low.

tamaharbor• 5 years ago

Why is everyone against fair elections?

KirbyTetro• 5 years ago

I don't think everyone is, Georgia recently made an effort toward free and fair elections.

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

Amazon's request seems very reasonable. The NLRB is a union-favoring body - I can understand why Amazon may distrust the process, the participants, the overseers, etc. Both sides should want this process to be as secure as possible if we are to not end up in a state where we doubt the results. For this union vote and election in general, I simply do not accept arguments that there must be things just left up to chance (like voter ID or security of the ballot box). We should strive to make the process as bulletproof as possible. Having cameras, a log of when the storage room is opened, and tamper-proof tape seems like a very low bar to set and I am not sure why this request was not granted.

tracker1• 5 years ago

I hope that they manage to secure the union. I don't think that unions have a place a lot of times, that said, the imbalance of employers like Amazon seem out of step with what should be negotiation, and setting what at least appear to be unreasonable terms.

Not to say that unions and employees can't overreach and overreact, in this case I hope they get things through. I also hope that Amazon doesn't close their local facilities as a result.

qubex• 5 years ago

Upon meta-consideration, I believe (but cannot prove, even subjectively) that it speaks volumes of the cumulative consultancy expertise Amazon has evidently hired to bear down upon this issue just how reasonable Amazon’s requests felt.

Sure, the headline optics of the webcam are bad, but the other requests... what’s not to dislike about them? More careful security and anti-tampering measures, what’s not to like about that? Sure, it’s a bit onerous, but also, who wouldn’t be willing to pay that one-off onus in order to head off the prospects of a contentious result further down the line?

And that’s the thing: I can’t quite answer my own implicit question. I’m pretty sure Amazon is really really upset about this, and they’re preparing to contest the legitimacy of the result, somehow? Is that what I’m getting the feeling of? I’m really not sure, but the whole request’s troughs and valleys strikes me as decidedly odd, and I feel strangely impinged-upon by it. Manipulated, even.

EDIT:

Several commenters have remarked below that it is actually a federal agency which conducts the election process. This is implied (or explicitly stated) to be FUD: Amazon preparing to discredit the election’s integrity by remarking that the unions hadn’t accepted their requests when it wasn’t the unions who could grant satisfaction of those requests (but rather, the appropriate governmental federal agency).

Amazon loses effort to install camera to watch counting of ballots in union vote

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