I'm hoping some reporting can dig up exactly why the workers voted as they did.
Was the Amazon anti-Union campaign that effective? Were the workers afraid of retaliation (either for the individual voting, or against the plant itself if the Union won)? Or did they actually make an educated decision not to unionize?
I worked for an airline a while back that had non-unionized pilots during its "startup" phase. I think the idea was that they'd bring in fresh eager young pilots from the military or regional airlines (where the working conditions are horrible) and get more concessions out of them than they would a unionized workforce. This is similar to how tech employers get their fresh meat^W^W employees from college where they're used to pulling all nighters and trading free food for extra hours at work. Anyway, I was in IT but was in the pilots' orbit a lot more than most IT folks. It took the pilots who wanted a union 3 votes over a period of years to get a union...and in this case I'm sure it was having to wait until a majority of the workforce grew up and realized that their employer wasn't one big happy family. This is even more important in aviation because seniority is everything -- you can't easily jump from airline to airline and keep your quality of life the same because you have to start at the bottom of the seniority order again. So, it was in their best interest to make sure they had some leverage against unrealistic demands.
During those votes, the amount of anti-union rhetoric you heard was extremely strong...the airline did everything right up to the legal lines they couldn't cross to subtly imply that life was going to be miserable once they "couldn't talk openly with one another." I'm sure Amazon did the same, except happening to drop something like, "Oh, did you see our latest line of picker robots? These should be ready in a couple of years...but we REALLY don't want to have to use them."
It doesn't have to be thuggish behavior like slashing management's car tires in the parking lot, but I do think there needs to be adversity between labor and management. Companies have spent years cultivating the happy family concept in the hopes that this will distract workers from the fact that they're getting a raw deal. Pushback on both sides is healthy. It's critical now that workers are basically powerless when compared to the organizations they're working for.
This is even more important in aviation because seniority is everything -- you can't easily jump from airline to airline and keep your quality of life the same because you have to start at the bottom of the seniority order again.
Interesting. I always assumed those seniority rules were because of the union. I've never heard of non-union jobs having any sort of seniority rules--pay, promotions, schedules, layoffs are all determine by merit or business need, not tenure.
I don't know about you all but I'd find working somewhere with promotions based on seniority to be oppressive. I'm confident (or arrogant if you please) enough to think I'm better than average at my job, willing to prove it, and expect I'll be rewarded for it. If promotions and raises were solely based on seniority, that would be completely demotivating.
he's one of you own. The people making the desicions that screw these workers over don't live anywhere near these workers. The anti-Union lawyers that made sure this vote failed were professionals flown in for that exact purpose.
Companies long since figured out that sending armed goons with mini guns just gets the public on the side of the Unions. Instead they do propaganda campaigns and suppression. It works. Look at how many anti-Union posts there are here on/..
Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket.
Curious to hear the worker's side of it (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm hoping some reporting can dig up exactly why the workers voted as they did.
Was the Amazon anti-Union campaign that effective? Were the workers afraid of retaliation (either for the individual voting, or against the plant itself if the Union won)? Or did they actually make an educated decision not to unionize?
Re:Curious to hear the worker's side of it (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked for an airline a while back that had non-unionized pilots during its "startup" phase. I think the idea was that they'd bring in fresh eager young pilots from the military or regional airlines (where the working conditions are horrible) and get more concessions out of them than they would a unionized workforce. This is similar to how tech employers get their fresh meat^W^W employees from college where they're used to pulling all nighters and trading free food for extra hours at work. Anyway, I was in IT but was in the pilots' orbit a lot more than most IT folks. It took the pilots who wanted a union 3 votes over a period of years to get a union...and in this case I'm sure it was having to wait until a majority of the workforce grew up and realized that their employer wasn't one big happy family. This is even more important in aviation because seniority is everything -- you can't easily jump from airline to airline and keep your quality of life the same because you have to start at the bottom of the seniority order again. So, it was in their best interest to make sure they had some leverage against unrealistic demands.
During those votes, the amount of anti-union rhetoric you heard was extremely strong...the airline did everything right up to the legal lines they couldn't cross to subtly imply that life was going to be miserable once they "couldn't talk openly with one another." I'm sure Amazon did the same, except happening to drop something like, "Oh, did you see our latest line of picker robots? These should be ready in a couple of years...but we REALLY don't want to have to use them."
It doesn't have to be thuggish behavior like slashing management's car tires in the parking lot, but I do think there needs to be adversity between labor and management. Companies have spent years cultivating the happy family concept in the hopes that this will distract workers from the fact that they're getting a raw deal. Pushback on both sides is healthy. It's critical now that workers are basically powerless when compared to the organizations they're working for.
Re:Curious to hear the worker's side of it (Score:4, Insightful)
This is even more important in aviation because seniority is everything -- you can't easily jump from airline to airline and keep your quality of life the same because you have to start at the bottom of the seniority order again.
Interesting. I always assumed those seniority rules were because of the union. I've never heard of non-union jobs having any sort of seniority rules--pay, promotions, schedules, layoffs are all determine by merit or business need, not tenure.
I don't know about you all but I'd find working somewhere with promotions based on seniority to be oppressive. I'm confident (or arrogant if you please) enough to think I'm better than average at my job, willing to prove it, and expect I'll be rewarded for it. If promotions and raises were solely based on seniority, that would be completely demotivating.
Slashing your managers tires would be useless (Score:2)
Companies long since figured out that sending armed goons with mini guns just gets the public on the side of the Unions. Instead they do propaganda campaigns and suppression. It works. Look at how many anti-Union posts there are here on