Amazon Warehouse Workers To Decide Whether To Form Company's First US Union (npr.org) 57
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Some 6,000 workers at Amazon's warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., will begin voting next month on a groundbreaking possibility: the first union in the company's U.S. history. The National Labor Relations Board on Friday scheduled the vote by mail because of coronavirus concerns. It will begin Feb. 8 and continue through March 29. Workers at one of Amazon's newest facilities are deciding whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Friday's ruling came after the agency facilitated a hearing, in which Amazon and the retail-workers union hashed out who should be included in the bargaining unit and how the vote should take place. Both parties agreed that hundreds of seasonal workers should be eligible to cast ballots. The NLRB rejected Amazon's calls for a traditional in-person vote in favor of balloting by mail.
"The biggest thing is Amazon is one of the biggest employers in the United States and they're heavily, heavily anti-union," said Arthur Wheaton of The Worker Institute at Cornell University. "So if you can start to get some of their U.S.-based (workers) successfully organized with the union, then that could lead to other cities also doing that." Amazon has said that between March and mid-September, it employed almost 1.4 million front-line workers across Amazon and Whole Foods in the United States. The company has argued the petitioners did not represent "the majority of our employees' views" and touted the warehouse facility's pay and benefits.
"The biggest thing is Amazon is one of the biggest employers in the United States and they're heavily, heavily anti-union," said Arthur Wheaton of The Worker Institute at Cornell University. "So if you can start to get some of their U.S.-based (workers) successfully organized with the union, then that could lead to other cities also doing that." Amazon has said that between March and mid-September, it employed almost 1.4 million front-line workers across Amazon and Whole Foods in the United States. The company has argued the petitioners did not represent "the majority of our employees' views" and touted the warehouse facility's pay and benefits.
Should have used a Betteredge-friendly headline (Score:1)
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No it shouldn't even if I agree that yes they should.
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I'm guessing they will.
I mean, they're using mail in balloting...it worked for Biden, it should work for the Union too.
UWA (Score:4, Informative)
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It depends. For example, I'd like to see Tesla workers unionize, but not under the corrupt (as in "many leaders went to jail over the past couple years"), pro-Detroit, anti-EV UAW. A union's motives need to align with the interests of the workers beyond just "try to negotiate good deals with management". I'd rather either see something like what Tesla-Grohmann did in Germany (internal bargaining unit), or a union that stands to benefit from a switchover to EVs (such as IBEW). You want a union that wants yo
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We "should" not actually need unions, because government should take steps to protect all workers, not just those who have access to a union. But what should and what is are often two different things.
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Agreed. I've found unions to be extremely ineffective at protecting those who need it the most (workers in small companies with little benefits). They are also not well designed for employees who switch companies. So to me, they are really outdated institutions, which inevitably end up protecting the workers with the worst competence / (compensation+benefits) ratios, and causing more harm than good.
If you want to protect workers, the best is to have employers behave themselves or face negative consequences
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Amazon has 1.4 million workers - this union vote effects 6,000 workers at one facility.
Good.. Bad .. or Ugly. (Score:3, Insightful)
The basic ideas that workers should be able to use collective bargaining power to ensure a better quality work environment is bedrock and good.
What unions have become in this country are power legally enabled corrupt and organizations.
Unions are fine, but laws that force companies to negotiate with them put too much power in the hands of the few.
Also, laws that allow someone to be forced to join and pay money to a union, with you you disagree, are just as wrong.
Further the only enforcement mechanism for union contracts should be contract law, not some huge framework of union specific laws meant to overly increase the power of an already powerful group.
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Yip, any large or lasting organization will eventually be subject to corruption and occasionally jerky leaders. Humans are very imperfect. I think the anthropic principle* "saved" us from being nuked back to the stone age: in other words, sheer luck. There are too many close calls to dismiss, and that's just the publicly-known ones.
* Civilizations who destroy themselves have much fewer ponderers wondering why they are in the state they are in.
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I don't understand why someone would work at a union shop if they really detested the union. Of course you have to pay union dues if you are working in a union job position. Why would anyone bother joining the union if they got the same benefits and compensation packages as the non-union worker? Of course, if no one pays dues then how the heck is the union suppose to do it's job in negotiating the workers contract?
If you hate unions, then don't work for a union shop. Understandable, there may be some jobs t
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If you work at a union shop, you should expect to be paying dues. If you think you are special and don't need no silly union go work where there is no union and take whatever you can get from that employer.
Well sure, but it's not incredibly onerous to imagine why unions are predisposed to dislike this arrangement. Tradesmen who excel in their crafts might tend to represent the special ranks, and be most prone to exit the union ranks.
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If you are that good at your trade, you probably should be starting your own business or otherwise take on a more managerial role. Your typical worker, union or not, isn't of that caliber that they should be managing others.
I'm a union worker myself and believe me, there are times when I can't stand some of the knuckle-draggers that make what I make while I'm actually doing good quality work. Of course, these lazy ones are the biggest complainers and tend to constantly be frustrated with management. It's am
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If you are that good at your trade, you probably should be starting your own business or otherwise take on a more managerial role.
I've never understood that thinking. Management is a special skill set, one that not everyone can learn and even fewer can be good at. I'm one of the leading physical security engineers in our region, but I hate managing people and I really suck at it. Why would I want to spend more time doing a job that I don't like and which I'm not good at instead of the work that I **am** good at and which I **do** enjoy?
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The line of thinking is if you are that knowledgeable, you may be more productive managing others that are not so knowledgeable or otherwise driven to the degree you are.
I agree that managing is definitely a skill and I'm not to fond of doing it either. I stopped being a manager because I disliked it, so I totally get you there. Ironically, my company would probably be better off if I would knuckle down and be a manager, but as you said, why would I want to spend all day doing something I dislike instead of
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My dad worked in an iron foundry for years, when he started guys regularly lost eyes and hands because the company wouldn't cough up for safety equipment, and one had died in a bath of molten iron a few years before. He helped bring in the union and without a doubt it saved lives. He hated the corruption that he saw at the upper levels, but going back to the way it was before was not worth considering.
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I agree it should be a matter of choice, and I don't 'in theory' have a problem if 'some' places are union shop , however that is not the way it works for unions, they take over whole sectors, they do so purposfully. Example, you are not able to teach at almost any school unless you are a member of the teachers union.
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....What unions have become in this country are power legally enabled corrupt and organizations.
Unions are fine, but laws that force companies to negotiate with them put too much power in the hands of the few.
Also, laws that allow someone to be forced to join and pay money to a union, with you you disagree, are just as wrong.
Further the only enforcement mechanism for union contracts should be contract law, not some huge framework of union specific laws meant to overly increase the power of an already powerful group.
Expecting unions to give up their power without mandating a similar restriction on business is simplistic, and wishful, thinking. The "power" and "union-speciifc laws" you are concerned about have their foundation in the illegal and often dangerous labour practices of many businesses. While the more extreme tactics of the past are mostly gone here (machine guns on properties, killing union organizers, etc), today we still see businesses engaging in illegal tactics to try to prevent unionization. If compa
Union Sentiment is... Complicated. News? No... (Score:2, Interesting)
I worked for over 20 years for a company that was regionally divided into union and non-union. The unionized group was in the minority. I was not union.
I out-earned my unionized counterparts for my entire career. I watched people get fired for incompetence, and promoted through merit (mostly - who are we kidding?). Everything the unions would have asked for was already granted, save for those things that cause "race to the middle" syndrome. I never once wished we were union, and I would have voted against i
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When I was in high school I worked part time at the local supermarket. You were required to join the union in order to work there. To join cost $100 dollars, and in exchange they told you you'd get a $.25 raise. There were no other benefits available to a part time employee.
At the time, minimum wage was $5.15/hour, so you'd get paid $5.40 once your membership became official. So to break even for the benefit of your union membership, you'd have to work 400 hours, or 100 days with 4 hour shifts. And mind you
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Amazon announces theyÃ(TM)ll be laying off 6000 employees at their Bessemer, Ala warehouse.
ÃoeOperations ceased to be profitableà a spokesperson told a local affiliate. Jeff Bezos said they will be reviewing their options and reopen the location as soon as possible but their news systems require a more educated workforce. In the mean time package processing is shifted to nearby processing centers.
In other news: Lawyers for the union charge Bezos with retaliation for his workers choosing to engage in the federally protected act of unionizing.
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Oh, good grief. Do you have any clue what it costs to set up a 1-2 million square foot mostly automated warehouse operation? I can tell you don't. Here's just my small part of the operation, the physical security (I actually currently work in Corporate offices, but at my previous employer set up a couple of these). This building will have at a minimum:
100-150 card readers @ $200 each
50-75 door controllers @ $450 each
6 system controllers @ $1400 each
50-100 fixed cameras @ $550 each
10-15 PTZ cameras @ $10
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Oh, and I left out cabinets, power supplies, mountings, conduit, permits, and 200-400 additional alarm points costing $25-$500 each.
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Perhaps not, but they'll certainly invest in further automation as fast as is fiscally reasonable.
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Amazing how you think a 6,000 employee facility can just be shutdown and relocated on a whim.
It was built as an 855,000 square foot facility with 1,500 employees - https://www.madeinalabama.com/... [madeinalabama.com] it apparently has grown since 2018
Ironic Alabama is First Place for Union (Score:4, Insightful)
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I rather suspect that their management will be replaced before the vote even happens, which is probably the issue. The workers already get better pay and benefits than pretty much any unskilled job in the state.
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I find it ironic that Amazon's first real unionization attempt is happening in a right-to-work state that's historically hostile to unions.
Yeah, it's almost as though the workers actually get to choose. Weird!
Popcorn (Score:1, Insightful)
Like watching a battle to the death between cancer and rabies, I'm hoping for a tie in second place.
I know that is unrealistic - this particular form of cancer takes decades to kill - but I can dream.
Good Luck (Score:3)
The South has really crappy minimum wage and overtime laws. One would think that this would make workers eager for union representation, but they almost always reject it. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/15... [npr.org]
I can imagine some of the VW workers feared that a union would make their labor noncompetitive, and VW would eventually move the factory to Mexico (VW was officially neutral). But in this case, they know that the warehouse location is based on location. If Amazon could have built a useful US warehouse in Mexico, it would have done it. If Amazon could have automated their jobs into oblivion, it would have done it. Alabama paid good money for those jobs https://apnews.com/3c4a248711d... [apnews.com] . There shouldn't be any shame in making sure those jobs pay decent money.
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At a minimum of $15/hr it's better pay than the majority of unskilled labor in the state make already, plus they get benefits and the opportunity to train at company expense for a job that's better than dead-end warehouse work. Amazon is pretty up-front with employees about warehouse jobs being phased out by automation as soon as it's do-able.
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Somehow Amazon limped along in Alabama until 18 months ago without this 1 million square foot facility - the beauty of Amazon's build huge facilities everywhere is you can close down one or two without much impact.
In other Amazon-related news: (Score:4, Interesting)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Canceled my prime account (Score:1, Troll)
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That will show them - did they offer you a partial refund, or did they just agree to not auto-renew your membership?
Robots (Score:1)
We need robots doing the work more than ever. Humans are too uppity to be workers. Just put them on UBI and a dopamine drip.
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good luck (Score:2)
...I mean, it's not like there are legions of people lining up for those jobs when these unionist idiots are fired, right? Not like robots are only a hairsbreadth away from being economically competitive from humans in those jobs?
Successfully forming a union requires leverage, generally regarding your irreplaceability. You have no leverage if you're just some dumb fuck warehouse drone only faintly more competent than a robot.
Amazon deserves this (Score:5, Interesting)
Second Amazon is automating the workers life while they're at work. IF they can't do anything but follow orders it follows that they'd try to create some rules for themselves AND Amazon. Fair is fair.
I wish them the best of luck creating these unions and I hope they teach the UBER and Facebook people a thing or two.