Exactly. And they turnover the people who are not well suited for the job. That seems to be one of the complaints, that those who are not able to maintain production goals, or who need excessive bathroom breaks, are turned over.
To be quite honest, if I wasn’t doing this gig, I’d probably be working at one. One opened up not too far away when we were still struggling through our first few years, and I strongly considered it as a fallback, as it would pay better, and have better benefits than any job I had had previously. I actually would love to have a 4 day workweek again, too.
They do have input, it’s just that they don’t have dicitorial powers. There are plenty of jobs that I would like to have changed the conditions of, in many cases, the changes that I would propose would be beneficial to the company too.
I’m sure it would be the right environment for a whole lot of people if they only had to ship one package an hour for $30 an hour. The question isn’t if it’s the right environment for everyone, the question is whether it’s the right environment for enough employees to run the business.
If someone wants to have control over the conditions of their workplace, let them open one themself. That’s what I did, and I run it the way that I always wanted things run, my goal was to make a company that I would want to work for. There are practical realities, I do have to judge the work and efficiency of my employees, and base wage, promotion, and even termination decisions based on that. I have a reasonable amount of turnover, as this is not the job for everyone. I listen to employees, and implement policies or procedures that seem to make sense, but there is nothing that I could do to make it the right environment for everyone.
It gives the union power. I don’t agree that it gives the employee power. I had far more control over my wage and promotional opportunities at non-union workplaces than union.
Collective bargaining gives the unions power; it gives the employees protection. I don’t see anything else that really gives employees the same kind of leverage that collective bargaining does.
Right, and which groups are among the strongest advocates for labor protections? If you didn’t have a powerful and well-organized labor lobby, the resistance against corporate America’s excesses would be weaker than it is now.
There seems to be a lot of misconception about the work of a union.
It all seems to be centred around the bogeyman of the right wing narrative that it is all about strikes and pay, but actually the vast majority of union work that matters to members is neither of those.
So what do members come to the shop steward and ask for help - largely its either about HR issues, and its about health and safety, and its about bullying/equality issues.
The fact is that a good employer should have no problem with having a union advise members on any of those things, it is far better for workers to understand their terms and conditions and many Health and Safety breaches are committed by workers themselves - but in the end it is the company that often ends up with the vicarious liability.
That old saying - if you think health and safety is expensive, try having an accident.
Usually theses issues come not from the higher end management - its normally from idiot managers without any expertise who think they can rule like little tinpot dictators - these types of manager may well know about the work itself (but not in any real detail) but they often understand little about specific matters or employer obligations.
So when an employer is discouraging union membership, its not just about pay, its not even about power, its about failing to behave with consideration.
There are many cites I could offer that demonstrate non-unionised workplaces have accidents at around 3 times the rate of their unionised counterparts - the costs of a serious incident such as a fire can often end up with the company going out of business.
Company bosses seem to believe the workers are trying to screw them out of something, when the truth is that those workers are more dependent upon the success and viability of the company than most of the management - it is in the interest of workers to ensure a safe workplace.
So if you are anti-union and fixated on pay and strikes - well congratulations, you are buying completely into the right wing anti fair play agenda of the half percenters.
Oh, and just let’s mention something else here - unionised workplaces are far more likely to prevent the company damaging the environment and ordinary citizens - think about water poisonings, think about rail collisions, think about major disasters and when you read the reports you will find a long and inglorious history of chances working in company management failing to follow legislation - and that affects everyone.
If I had to pick one I’d pick labor laws … and strong worker rights provisions in international free trade agreements. Not even a contest. Fortunately this is not an either-or proposition. Employees get represented power at the table by way of collective bargaining by way of their elected leadership and ability to vote.
FWIW I share this from the NYT in the wake of the loss, somewhat on subject here.
Also the complaint about working conditions there was mostly Amazon’s drive to have data to analyze on everything (by which they design efficient systems), including what workers are doing when. The tactic of the organizers was to try to hitch the effort to BLM. It seems that the majority did not find having data collected to be a problem and did not feel this was a BLM issue.
I am more upset that we are not advancing legislation that provides for living wages and affordable healthcare coverage for all than an expected unionization loss at Amazon in Alabama.
I’d also add that unionization is really also a way to tip the balance of power back a little bit in the direction of workers, and by virtue of that, back to ordinary people.
Companies oppose unions because they simply want to have the power to dictate 100% how their company is going to operate - full stop. They insist on having unfettered power to operate however they see fit, even if having that power ends up getting people hurt or killed on the job.
…I mean, that’s how it works. If you decide to join the union and if the union negotiates better rates and conditions for you, then you get better rates and conditions. And you don’t risk your job for striking because that’ isn’t how it should work, and not how it works in much of the world.
Being a hard job wasn’t the totality of your point.
Your point was that you had seen the complaints, and the way you see it was that “people who just don’t want a hard job.”
But there is no evidence to support that assertion. It’s a talking point based entirely on your own anecdotal experience. You haven’t provided a single example of somebody that is complaining because the “job is too hard.” You are projecting.
Yep.
Anecdotal. Again.
For context this was the very first thing said in the tweet storm.
What k9bfriender has done here is taken several distinct and different points made throughout the tweet storm and re-contextualised those arguments to make a very different point. Its disengenous and dishonest.
The point isn’t that Bezos should pay more taxes. The point is that Amazon could comfortably afford to do things like allow up to two weeks sick leave and pay bumps so that the taxpayer doesn’t have to provide food stamps.
And what difference would a union make? The job of the union is to represent the worker to negotiate better terms and conditions. Sick leave, pay raises and getting people off food stamps are all things that they fight for.
Can you be a bit more specific about what incident or incidents you are talking about here?
This was the article where the tornado incident was mentioned.
Ms Black wasn’t complaining. It was an anecdote about how “inhuman” it is to work at an Amazon warehouse. It wasn’t a demand for a service. It was a “what the fuck why the fuck are they playing Michael Jackson?” moment.
Nonsense. Rubbish. Bullshit.
You’ve cherry-picked a single incident (the tornado) and turned it into something it wasn’t. You’ve waved your hand about some vague bullshit about “complaints were that they were judged on their performance” and want to pretend that this is evidence that this is somehow representative of all the complaints.
You are normally a much better debater than this. But this is just piss-poor handwaving bullshit.
That isn’t how it works. Your CLAIM was that you had seen the complaints, and the way you saw it was that people just don’t want a hard job. I’ve provided you with a resource that show multiple complaints, from having no option to having to “pee in a bottle” while at work, to being forced to move to megacycle shifts or lose their jobs, to how the injury rates are 2.5 higher than the national warehouse average, to how outlandish quotas for delivery drivers was causing accidents, injuries and death.
I could go on for hours. The evidence that this isn’t just about “people not wanting to work hard” is overwhelming. Your claim is ridiculous and not supported by the evidence, and you haven’t even bothered trying to back your claim up. Its projection. Nothing more.
That’s such an American exceptionalist thing to say. That is how unions work here. I understand that (at least in the jurisdiction under discussion here) that isn’t the way it works there. My question to you was why not? If people want to join the union why shouldn’t they be allowed to do so? It was a request for your opinion, not a request for the current legal status quo. “It is because thats the way it is” isn’t much of an opinion.
How does this relate to anything I just said?
If a worker wants to join a union and have a union represent them in negotiations, why does it matter if the person next to him doesn’t want to join the union? Why should that matter? This isn’t a matter of democracy, it’s a matter of freedom of association.
The Vice story linked to in cite number 4 is titled " Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups."
From the cited article:
And that is literally what the rest of the article is all about. I didn’t see anything in that article about people complaining about being judged on their performance. Dan’s comment in that tweet “Amazon tracks workers’ every moment to make sure they aren’t slacking for even seconds at a time” is an objectively correct statement that wasn’t “a complaint” but was used to emphasize the point about the degree of control Amazon seeks to exert over their employees.
At what point does the company not have to deal with the union? If there are a hundred employees and 2 decide to join or form a union does the boss have to negotiate with their union rep? What if it’s one guy but he hires an agent? Are companies forced to negotiate with unions because they exist? What if 33 employees join the union but the employees turned down 33 new hires yesterday can the just fire all union members?
The main power of a union is the theory that while one of us may be replaceable all of us aren’t replaceable but with smaller numbers that becomes less and less true. While I think the third of Amazon employees should have been able to unionize Amazon should have been able to fire them and see if they could find more people like the other 2/3s.
…calm down. You are acting like these questions haven’t been raised before in places all around the world. For example here is how they do it here:
And its thinking like this that is one of the leading reasons why America is essentially a dystopia just short of what Max Headroom was imagining 20 minutes into the future would look like.
Man, I’m so glad you’re from New Zealand. Care to summarize or answer a question for those of us who don’t have time to memorize employment laws in countries then have no interest in being employed in?
…I didn’t link to employment laws. I linked to a summary of how things worked here written in very plain english that provided answers to your question. I’m not a fucking lawyer and I’m not your fucking monkey and we are in the fucking pit and if you want you gish gallop of questions answered specifically and precisely can I suggest that you do it yourself.
…the specific questions like “If there are a hundred employees and 2 decide to join or form a union does the boss have to negotiate with their union rep?”
The answer is clearly yes. Any employee can choose to join a union and to have that union negotiate on their behalf. How is that not clear from the cite? “What if it’s one guy but he hires an agent?” This is spelled out in the cite. The agent needs to be a registered union which means it must have at least 15 members, become an incorporated society and register as a union.
Literally what you linked to says basically nothing. I’d like to learn about how unions work in NZ and how they deal with those precise issues.
Nothing in that site says that a company must negotiate with a union or come to a collective agreement with it. They can form. Punishment for joining a union is forbidden. They can strike if they want. But can company still say no, we won’t negotiate, and make individual employee agreements with those who want them?
So yes they need to negotiate and locking them out for lack of an agreement is considered an acceptable sanction.
No extant union with a collective agreement. 98 employees want to work under the individual agreements offered and two don’t, join a union with at least 15 members? Negotiation may be the offer of the standard individual employee agreement and locking the two out if they say no.
A third maybe the same if there are many others who are willing to work under the individual agreements.
But you are missing the point. The specifics of how we do things here doesn’t matter. The post that Oredigger77 responded to was this:
He responded with a gish gallop of questions with the intent of obscuring the question that I asked, which was “why does this matter?”
There will of course be things to work through if you decided to change how you do things. You have to have answers to those questions eventually. But none of the specifics are direct obstacles to making a change and we can see that because all around the world various countries have been able to answer them in a variety of different ways.
I won’t belabor it but to my read you are the one missing the point. A union has power emergent of solidarity across the workplace or even across the industry. The less the solidarity the less the power. Of course it matters if a majority of those next to you don’t join the union.
Two people in a workplace of a hundred have freedom of association and can join a trade union but they have very little power in a negotiation compared to if the 98 were in the union and the two were not.