Amazon Workers Vote Down Alabama Union Campaign (theverge.com) 210
Amazon employees at a Bessemer, Alabama warehouse have voted against unionizing the facility's roughly 5,800-person workforce. From a report: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has tallied 1,700 "no" votes on the measure, more than half of the 3,215 ballots cast by employees at the BHM1 fulfillment center. Roughly 700 votes that have been counted voted in favor of the union, and approximately 500 of the total ballots were contested, mostly by Amazon. Workers voted in February and March by mail over whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), a possibility Amazon fought with anti-union meetings and other aggressive measures. BHM1 is only the second US Amazon facility to hold a union vote, following a far smaller group of warehouse technicians in Delaware. If workers had approved the union, it would have become the largest group to gain representation in a single NLRB election since 1991.
Amazon workers outside BHM1 have carried out more informal activism, including during the coronavirus pandemic, when employees claimed that Amazon had failed to reveal COVID-19 cases and provide adequate protective measures. In complaints obtained by news outlets, the NLRB determined that Amazon illegally retaliated against some of these workers. The NLRB also found that Amazon acted illegally in firing two workers who pushed it to address its climate impact. Amazon has long resisted unionization and waged an aggressive campaign in Bessemer. The company brought in expensive anti-union consultants and held so-called "captive audience" meetings, which are mandatory workplace lectures where unions are presented in a negative light.
Amazon workers outside BHM1 have carried out more informal activism, including during the coronavirus pandemic, when employees claimed that Amazon had failed to reveal COVID-19 cases and provide adequate protective measures. In complaints obtained by news outlets, the NLRB determined that Amazon illegally retaliated against some of these workers. The NLRB also found that Amazon acted illegally in firing two workers who pushed it to address its climate impact. Amazon has long resisted unionization and waged an aggressive campaign in Bessemer. The company brought in expensive anti-union consultants and held so-called "captive audience" meetings, which are mandatory workplace lectures where unions are presented in a negative light.
Not a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a new Fulfillment Center, there is no demand that the union could make that would cost the company more than they've just invested in building and equipping the place. This isn't Ford, where Henry closed the factory making Model T steering wheels because the town's mayor was insufficiently deferential, it's the most data-driven company that I've ever worked at. If it doesn't make financial sense then it won't be done.
Much more likely to me is that:
1) Workers recognize that they're already making more than any other non-Teamsters warehouse job in the state
2) Workers with experience at other warehouse jobs compare it to their previous positions and recognize that it is head and shoulders safer and better than Target or Walmart distribution centers
3) Workers like having full benefits and free education
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The union would have to be run by morons. I've worked in warehouses and retail distribution centers, it's a shit job that's generally dangerous and normally doesn't pay well. At the FCs it's still a shit job but it's not dangerous and the pay/benefits are about as good as you'll find for a no-education low-skills job. Your scenario is really a bit of a stretch.
Re:Not a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Putting it on labor for wanting a fair wage seems to attribute blame in the wrong direction.
Blaming the bosses is equally foolish then. A company can't stay in business unless it can pass along the costs of labor to customers. Once someone else can do a job for a lower cost, customers will gravitate towards the lower prices.
U.S. consumers were the ones that didn't want to pay the higher wages to U.S. steel workers. Even the people who are self-proclaimed out-and-out flag-waving patriots will gladly waive flags made in China which cost less to produce.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Then pay the bosses less and charge customers the same. But noooo, the bosses wanted booze, girls and fast cars instead.
Nobody minds paying a bit more for higher quality goods, which is what you get from decently paid employees.
Lots of people mind paying more so that the bosses can get into Epstein's club.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to put all of the blame on evil bosses might make you feel good, but it can't actually fix anything because it completely misunderstands the problem.
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Yup, and in todays victim-cancel culture, if you were to suggest that people here buy American that is is better to support local folks, products and companies and not give in t
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Yup, and in todays victim-cancel culture, if you were to suggest that people here buy American that is is better to support local folks, products and companies and not give in to China, you'll be instantly branded xenophobic and racist.
*SIGH*
<sarcasm> If anybody in the US is a keen practitioner of victim-cancel culture it's you xenophobes ... Alarm!, ALARM!! Caravans of latinos are coming ... Judeo-Christian culture is under threat of EXTINCTION!!!! We are being PERSECUTED!!! ... move armoured divisions to the borders!!! The refugees might wipe us out by coming over here and doing some fruit picking and gardening work!!!
</sarcasm>
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Well, that's the dumbest post that I've seen all week. Impressive in its own way.
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No, that does not happen. I don't know what weird propaganda site you're following, but the right and the left both are highly critical of China. Your statement seems wholely without merit or evidence, and seems like the sort of thing that's just made up on the spot to make poeple angry for political election purposes.
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That's not even remotely true and you know it. Even right now in the discussions about the infrastructure bill working it's way through Congress, there are many Democrats that you are probably happy to proclaim as "woke warriors" or whatever the hell that are putting Buy American clauses in the bill to make sure that money stays right here unless there are no domestic suppliers.
And, by the way, the increase in violence and shitty behavior towards asian-americans is real. There's a restaurant here that has
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Well, I think it's pretty settled, (even with China's less than open tour with WHO) that the virus originated from China.
So, China-Virus is quite accurate.
And there's nothing in that term that says Asian people are to blame, nor that asian Americans should be attacked.
So, why shun an accurate term?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I think it's pretty settled, (even with China's less than open tour with WHO) that the virus originated from China.
So, China-Virus is quite accurate.
And there's nothing in that term that says Asian people are to blame, nor that asian Americans should be attacked.
So, why shun an accurate term?
Yep, pretty much the standard naming convention. At least it was prior to the "I'm offended" generations that is.
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I guess you don't watch the new on US TV....I've recently seen people wide conflating anything anti-China that is voice with anti-Asian , and then they bring up the supposed widespread violence against Asians in the US lately.
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You act as though people will gladly spend more on quality, but most won't. If what you suggested were true we wouldn't be having this discussion.
Higher wages don't necessarily mean higher quality. In fact, correlation implies the opposite. The most dependable cars [wikipedia.org] in the US are predominantly made in non-union plants. The lowest quality cars [wikipedia.org] tend to come from union run plants.
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Then pay the bosses less and charge customers the same. But noooo, the bosses wanted booze, girls and fast cars instead.
Bosses are highly paid but it doesn't amount to that much in the end.
For example, Google CEO Sundar Pichai is paid ~$2 million per year, there are ~100000 Google employees. That's around $10 per employee, not significant.
In reality, with stock options, equity, all that stuff, it is actually much more, maybe 100x more, so that's $1000 per employee. That's significant but giving all that to employees will make what? A 1-2% raise on average maybe. And usually, that money is invested in the company itself, not
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>Bosses are highly paid but it doesn't amount to that much in the end.
I'm not so sure. In dollars and cents, no, it usually doesn't add up to much. But in employee morale? Folks find it a lot harder to swallow "We've got to cut your pay by 50% in order to compete." when the bosses don't cut their own pay similarly. What makes you so special that you should be exempt from the pay cut? Your job doesn't suddenly become responsible for a larger percentage of the company's profits.
And with the dramatic i
Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
A company can't stay in business unless it can pass along the costs of labor to customers.
That's why most countries in the world agreed on a minimal set of labor rights. This way no company would be under pressure to seek labor cheaper than that minimum level as it wouldn't exist, thus not entering the calculation. Unfortunately, some countries decided to not be part of that movement, and hence labor in them is cheaper.
The interesting thing about this is that, if all countries completely abolished all labor laws, and outlawed unions completely, thus making sure labor would be the absolute cheapest possible all around, businesses all around the world would all run like mad towards the bottom, making sure they were producing everything at the cheapest places. As a result, the working class would have the absolutely least amount of money available to purchase anything since Capitalism began, thus driving most of those companies into bankruptcy due to lack of demand. The few remaining companies would then have enormous hordes of candidates for every position, to the tune of 100k applicants per position, thus making sure the cheap salaries could be cut even further, and by extension making certain that even less people would have any rent available to purchase anything. And in the end, Capitalism would ruin.
So maybe that's the goal, and Amazon and the others are indeed focused on making sure the world transition to the next epoch, whatever it is, as soon as humanly possible. ;-)
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The arguments get really messy once you don't just look at labor costs but start to factor in environmental costs and honestly I feel that's a far bigger issue than cheap labor. But poor
Re: Not a surprise (Score:2)
Frankly that's okay to me because they can probably get a job that makes more efficient use of their labor.
I think that depends on how much AI advances. As it gains IQ-equivalent abilities, most jobs requiring that IQ level are lost to automation. And IQ isn't something one can train to get better at, it's mostly genetic, with some variation due to feeding during infancy, and a tiny bit of variation due to education. Hence, once all jobs at your IQ level are automated at a cost lower than any human can do it for, you're out of a job for good.
The world still isn't at that stage, but it's walkin at an accelerated
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Re: Not a surprise (Score:2)
Most (all?) places in which automation eliminated jobs didn't see workers happy that now that a robot is doing their job they personally get free time to do what they really want. Rather, they're devastated because now they themselves must find a new job which is going to pay less.
There's no reason to think it'll be different with entire IQ levels being automated away. Hence why solutions proposed involved States taxing robotized industries and distributing those taxes as rent in the form of a universal bas
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"Most countries in the world". Uh no.
Actually, yes [wikipedia.org].
And since this is about the US, your labour standards are abysmal compared to first world countries.
I couldn't parse this sentence. Who does the "yours" above refers to? And it seems to imply the US isn't a first world country, which makes it even more confusing.
Re: (Score:2)
>And it seems to imply the US isn't a first world country,
I think that's exactly their point.
We used to be a pinnacle among the first-world countries - in many ways we were leading the charge. But we faltered. We fell behind. Now we kind of suck in a whole lot of ways compared to the rest of the "first world", and in some ways even compared to some of the up-and-coming developing nations.
Re: Not a surprise (Score:3)
If it's really so bad, then why do so many other countries, first world inclusive, complain about brain drain of their own skilled labor always moving to the US to work? In fact, when skilled Europeans emigrate from their home country, their top destination is the United States.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Re: Not a surprise (Score:3)
Skilled labor operates under a different ruleset compared to unskilled labor.
Unskilled labor is basically a commodity. Absent any moral (or legal) imperative, you can replace a unskilled laborer for another and this hardly affects the end result, so wages suffer an intense downwards pressure.
Skilled labor, in contrast, entrenches itself in whatever they work, their expertize giving them a distinctiveness before other skilled laborers, to the point every skilled laborer becomes a unique item, or at least a h
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Blaming the bosses is equally foolish then. A company can't stay in business unless it can pass along the costs of labor to customers. Once someone else can do a job for a lower cost, customers will gravitate towards the lower prices.
Which is the importance of both a minimum wage and trade policies which defend the minimum wage.
I would love to see my industry unionize and have the main companies be signatories as a business owner because we actually pay our employees well and give them good benefits while we compete with scam companies which abuse their workers and pay them shit wages. It's harder to compete when your neighbor is screwing over their employees. That's true locally, nationally and internationally.
Race to the bottom (Score:2)
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"If the boss wants to offshore the jobs, then boss should be required to move to the city, town, or village where the work is being done."
Don't give them ideas, as there's nothing like being rich in a poor country.
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expected to continue getting a good wage for doing the work they've always done
And that was a fundamental mistake. That might have been true in pre-industrial times, but technological changes, from automation to recycling, makes that ideal impossible.
Hell, American steel mill jobs declined not so much for oversea movement, but automation and recycling. Hell, I forgot the figures (will have to double-check Enrico Moretti's "The New Geography of Jobs"), but IIRC 60% of the steel we produce is recycled, not mined/processed steel.
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I think it's more accurate to say steel workers expected to continue getting a good wage for doing the work they've always done while their bosses decided to grab more money for themselves and outsource. Putting it on labor for wanting a fair wage seems to attribute blame in the wrong direction.
Except they had the option of creating modern steel factories in the US, keep at least some of the jobs and all of the production there. Instead they opted to not invest in new tech, move overseas to make use of slave labour and the fact that overseas they could pollute as much as the wanted. Blaming everything on Labour is an argument born out of the best traditions of Objectivist philosophy, of the wealthy being Makers, the rest of humanity are useless Takers and that the boundless selfishness of the Make
Re: (Score:2)
I think it's more accurate to say steel workers expected to continue getting a good wage for doing the work they've always done while their bosses decided to grab more money for themselves and outsource. Putting it on labor for wanting a fair wage seems to attribute blame in the wrong direction.
This is wrong for several reasons. My family came out of labor unions in the Ohio valley. I will absolutely agree that at one time unions were vitally important and that they have played a useful role to some degree. To pretend that labor unions were not guilty of excesses and abuses that exacerbated many of the problems facing business is crazy and shows a lack of familiarity or experience with labor unions in the US.
If you are a company and you have the choice to buy steel from an American company or from
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But overseas they manage to have unions. Well, not in the third world countries where those jobs moved to, but in first world countries like the US.
Also steel has left the US not just because of labor but many other reasons.
Those that voted "No" were promised (Score:4, Funny)
It is Alabama! (Score:4, Interesting)
Alabama is first Alphabetically but usually last or near the end in all other good measures.
Being that Unions are just tied to "LiBeRaLs" that alone will probably just be enough to stop most organizations of unions in that state.
Now don't get me wrong, I am not a big fan on Unions on how they are in the United States (Europe seems to have a better more balanced Union system). And I don't expect these Alabama workers to really get anything great if they did unionize. As American Unions tend to create collective bargaining, at the expense of personal bargaining, say where someone who needs more money could do some other jobs as overtime, or show that they are really good worker and get a raise over the other guy who does just enough to not get fired. As well I have seen Unions create a lot of layoffs at a job, often with older higher paid workers, in order to bring in a bunch of lower paid workers, so they can collect more money in dues.
Re: (Score:3)
how they are in the United States (Europe seems to have a better more balanced Union system)
Yep, and that has to do with good labor/worker protections laws. That's why unions, companies and legal systems work in tandem (typically) over there in EU land.
Here, we do not have good labor protection laws and expect unions to insulate the worker from that reality, in a dog-eat-dog world. So, of course unions end up failing here. Our problems are cultural in nature.
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"Yep, and that has to do with good labor/worker protections laws. That's why unions, companies and legal systems work in tandem (typically) over there in EU land.
Here, we do not have good labor protection laws and expect unions to insulate the worker from that reality"
I think you got it reversed. It is not that unions work better in EU because we have good labor protection laws, but that we have better protection laws because unions work better here.
So it might be useful to study what the differences betwe
Re: (Score:3)
> show that they are really good worker and get a raise over the other guy
At my very first job out of school I lost that faith in meritocracy.
There was a job shopper who kept saying "bit" when I expected "byte" and vice versa. Finally I expressed my confusion. He admitted he didn't know the difference. When I tried to raise concerns to my PHB I was not even allowed to finish a sentence and got lectured about how I should learn from him.
PHBs do not know the difference between good workers and bad workers.
Re:It is Alabama! (Score:5, Insightful)
> And I don't expect these Alabama workers to really get anything great if they did unionize.
Maybe "even" Alabama warehouse workers have moral agency and can figure this out for themselves?
Maybe they're not mindless political automata?
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Not only manufacturing, but some fairly high tech industry too.
I will now avoid buying through Amazon (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I will now avoid buying through Amazon (Score:5, Informative)
because i dont want to do business with an abusive mail order company, those warehouse workers deserve better treatment
Er, the workers are the ones who voted down the union.
Re: (Score:3)
Same as Californians voting down treating Uber workers as employees instead of contractors.
Free people voting is sometimes inconvenient.
Re:I will now avoid buying through Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
Same as Californians voting down treating Uber workers as employees instead of contractors.
That is an invalid comparison. Not all Californians are Uber drivers. All Alabama Amazon workers are Alabama Amazon workers.
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But non-Amazon Workers in Alabama didn't get to vote. You don't seem to understand what's going on here at all. The Amazon Workers at this warehouse voted against organizing into a union. Amazon didn't prevent them. Amazon *can't* prevent them.
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Amazon didn't prevent them. Amazon *can't* prevent them.
They certainly tried their best: massive propaganda, mandatory ani-union training, installing monitored ballot boxes on-premise [fortune.com], etc.
Here's how can work in a normal country with a non-asshole company: get a handful of people to agree to form a union, file paperwork, done. This gets you all legeal protections and then the negotiation power of the union depends on how many people you can convince to join you.
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Free and misinformed people :-) Ie, for a long time, probably from the start, it was Democrats supporitng unions (even conservative Democrats in the south), and Republicans as the traditional pro-industrial party opposing unions. Now that many low skilled workers are in the Republican camp it feels odd, as they will actively block unions, actively block minimum wage hikes, then turn to their Republican party and say "we did what you asked, now where are our high paying jobs?" They'll demand that jobs sto
Re: (Score:2)
Least informative of the two comments (currently, of course) moderated as "Informative". But it's possible you were "misled" by the "Interesting" moderation of an unclear comment that was probably intended as a joke?
Who did you think should do the voting? Surely not the managers? Or maybe you thought his comment to which you were replying was based on some sort of municipal election? Heck, in Switzerland they have elections for traffic lights and new Swiss citizens, so it would sort of make sense for the ci
Re:I will now avoid buying through Amazon (Score:4, Insightful)
Why did it take you until now to avoid Amazon?
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I have mostly avoided Amazon since the start. There are many reasons to dislike them.
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Seems to be the most interesting of the four "Interesting" moderated comments, but I think you were trying to be funny in some sort of sarcastic way. Care to clarify?
If you're serious, then I can report that Amazon doesn't care. I stopped shopping with Amazon 20 years ago and Jeff Bezos doesn't miss me yet. But if you're serious, then I think the moderation probably should have been "Insightful".
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:4, Informative)
Don't hold your breath for some honest reporting. All media outlets currently serve as advocates for one side or the other.
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They're probably advocating more for one side than for the other, tho...
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There are many exceptions. In fact, I would say that most reporting is fairly balanced. There's usually some bias, but outside of the main opinionated personalities on television news and some obviously "winged" outlets, it isn't that bad. If it is, it is almost always so blindingly obvious that one can turn on the filters and look at the message behind the message.
I've really been enjoying reaching much further for my news. I'm Canadian. The world is only rarely interested in our local news, but for news
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Aw, give it up. You're probably out there reading OANN and thinking that you're getting the only truth. BBC is not very biased especially outside of British politics. Probably you're mad because of all the media that accurately and honestly reported that Trump lost the election fair and square. (note Sidney Powell's lawsuit defense that no reasonable person would have taken her statements on eledtion fraud seriously :-)
Any media outside of the US would have looked in at the Trump administration and seen
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.
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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?
Are we really not considering that perhaps Amazon workers in Alabama do not want unions?
How far down the rabbit hole do we need to go as we negate the possibility that perhaps these workers have their own agency?
I'm not a fan of unions (unions in America, unlike unions in the EU or Japan), but I was hoping this would pass.
However, it didn't, and I'm not willing to ignore the possibility that this is the popular sentiment among those workers, and that perhaps they know better than us what is better for
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"Are we really not considering that perhaps Amazon workers in Alabama do not want unions?"
Anti-union campaigns have a way of twisting things. No worker wants to be forced to stand 12 hours a day, have no bathroom breaks, be fired if they fall behind some unachievable quota, spend unpaid time being security-screened on the way out of work, or any of the other problems widely reported. Given this, you'd think that the union vote would be a done deal...my thought was that it would pass, and then Amazon would i
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I see it in the tech industry all the time too -- I can't tell you the number of times I've heard the "I couldn't set up my trade show booth at the convention center until a union electrician came to plug my stuff in" complaint.
That's a completely legit example though, and one which I have personally experienced multiple times. No one does institutionalized laziness and the break-windows-and-fix-them business model like the Teamsters. It's laughable and sad at the same time. If you want people to take
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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?
Are we really not considering that perhaps Amazon workers in Alabama do not want unions?
Considering that Amazon workers in Alabama did not want unions was actually the 3rd possibility I presented.
As sketchy and unethical as Amazon's tactics were I'm prepared to accept that it's also true that the workers decided a union was not in their best interests and they were not mistaken.
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I've been a Teamster, and I guarantee you that I would have voted against a union. Most people that are pro-union have a very romanticized view of how a union actually helps. If you have low seniority and/or are a better worker than average, then a union would actively work against you.
I can tell you this much (Score:2)
That said it seems to be a pretty big loss. I think this might just be that the propaganda worked. Just like how Uber got Prop 22 passed in California if professionals with access to focus groups spend enough time and money you can get people to do just about anything....
My guess (Score:3)
Here is my guess: what's better, the devil you know, or the devil you don't know?
Voting against their best interests (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this is pretty good evidence that people have been totally brainwashed against unions and the abusive employers have won.
Everyone likes to say, "Workers don't need a union if everything's fine" and I kind of agree with that, except for the fact that an individual worker (no matter how much of a prima donna 10x-er they are) has very little power to bargain for a mutually beneficial deal for both. Even if you are a guru superstar rockstar full stack genius who lives at work and lives for work, you might forget that the vast VAST majority of people out there have horrible jobs that are made worse by bad working conditions, unrealistic demands and low pay.
I know that Amazon would have just shut down the warehouse had this succeeded, but I'm unhappy that it failed. This is because the company will take this as a signal that they can do whatever they want to their labor force and crack the whip harder. I think it's going to take pushing salaries back to minimum wage for everyone and making them work 7 days a week to get traction for getting any sort of balance back. If one of the most anti-union regions of the country even entertains a union vote, you can bet the working conditions are horrible...yet look at how they basically said they were willing to be abused.
South Carolina and Unionization (Score:3)
I used to think that unions would be a good thing here (South Carolina), too, but then I was told and more importantly shown that most of our state has next to nothing going for it. We have poor schools and poorly educated workers, shitty roads and a lack of upgraded infrastructure otherwise, etc. So, as much as I hate to admit it, the only things we really have to lure business here really are the usual *Republican* talking points: tax breaks and other financial incentives for the businesses and cheaper non-union labor.
The problem is that that tends to keep power in the hands of those that benefit from shitty schools, roads, etc, which means that things just get worse and perpetuate the cycle. But all most voters can see is the short term benefits each time, and the fact that in the short term, the Repubs are actually RIGHT about what helps *immediately*.
I'd bet the story in Alabama is much the same, and those who have suggested that Amazon would close the operation there and people would lose their jobs if they unionized aren't wrong. The part they're missing is, and again, I hate to defend them, that Amazon would actually be somewhat justified in doing so, because the cheap labor force was one of the few incentives they had to locate there in the first place.
You're (mostly) correct about SC and similar areas (Score:5, Informative)
Primary education is shit but trades education is often quite decent and would be even more effective if guidance counselors didn't regard trades as a dumping ground. After retiring from the Air Force in SC I took CNC machining and welding for fun then volunteered and finally worked in community college workforce training programs. It was great techy fun and I see why trades educators mostly love the work. Taking a kid off the block and turning them into a capable noob weldor or machinist is rewarding and our students like it so well many return to visit and help subsequent generations of noobs.
A key problem is filling classes despite education being basically free. Pell grants, lottery money and more programs are readily availa.
The roads don't truly matter to industry (they mention them but that's not genuine concern) since their impact is esthetic not logistic, but the available non-shit workforce is quite small for the size of the state. The primary educational system is poor but it's the local lower class culture lacks self-discipline which makes for indifferent workers. The small quality workforce makes skilled positions hard to fill even at good wages (money goes a long way here).
Those never exposed to bottom-tier US culture (media isn't the same as being there, it's not even close) are often shocked when they encounter it. Children raised without discipline don't self-discipline and it costs them dearly in squandered opportunities. Getting workers who can pass a drug test and show up on time is an accomplishment. Local culture suited agra and clothing mills but stereotypical slack-jawed locals are reality and too few are eager to learn and compete to better their lives.
German companies (German investment in SC is considerable and Germany is a major SC trading partner) have done well once they figured out the teething pains will be severe. (Continental Tire piled one million dollars worth of scrap on the shop floor to illustrate to the workers the waste they were causing. I witnessed that and it's no rumor.) They pay excellent wages and the plant is new and a delight to work in (I've an industrial maintenance background too) but except for the key supervisors and department heads one must ride close herd on the workers. Labor is cheap enough and the seaport logistics (FAR more important than roads, remember businesses outsource trucking so not their problem) make locating in SC a good call but if labor becomes too expensive it's easy to build a greenfield site elsewhere, The US has effectively infinite disposable land.
With the very small competent workforce stretched thin the unemployed are mostly unemployable and they know it. An Amazon won't get the cream of the crop, will have constant high turnover thanks to bottom tier workers, and otherwise be limited by labor, Those who can automate should do so.
UBI is IMO the best way to buy political peace since many low tier workers will never be intelligent enough to handle demanding tasks. "Stupid people" tend to be forgotten because admitting they exist is not PC. They cannot be profitably employed except in unpleasant ways doing unpleasant tasks with no future, so it's work for Amazons or not at all. Someone with a double-digit IQ may be a decent person but what does one DO with them?
BTW SC was famous for union busting when unions were still credible. Enersys is not forgotten (the plant remains as a storage facility so the owners don't have to clean up what would be a Superfund site if closely inspected) but most locals just don't care and never will. I've asked many over the years.
I guess I don't get how unions work in the US... (Score:2)
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I think if unions here in the U.S. acted more like the guilds of Europe then you there would be more acceptance here in the U.S. It is my experience that the unions breed an atmosphere of entitlement over time. They go from working conditions and pay (which I am ok with) to teaching the employee that they deserve a say in how a company is run which is why in many cases companies are vehemently against them. Personally, that is my biggest issue with them. If someone wants to have a say then either join manag
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If someone wants to have a say then either join management or invest within the company.
Good employees are an investment, bad management can't see that.
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I would agree...and the companies that I have worked for have viewed it as such. You missed the point though about going beyond that and believing they somehow deserve a say in how the company is run.
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Nope, in the US, if they vote to be a union shop, then ALL workers then have NO choice and have to become dues paying union members.
At that point, you cannot negotiate anything as an individual and you have live and deal completely with what the union negotiates for everyone.
In the US, the choice it union shop or not...there is no blend like you describe....here if it goes union, then the union 100% rules your work life, you have no choice at that point.
That depends on your state, if your state has a Right To Work law ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) you cannot be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.
Aaron Z
Wrong Union (Score:3)
There are more Amazon warehouse workers than members of many other unions. They could easily have their own union - being lumped in with department store workers in an out-of-state union isn't going to get them representation based on their needs.
When was the last time somebody thought that department store workers had great jobs because the union took care of them? 1978?
Re:DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions are not always a net positive gain to the worker.
These are things that I have personally seen...
They can go on an unpaid strike for 2 weeks for a 1% increase in salary. (which they had lost 3.8% of their pay from the strike).
The Union has its own interest in mind that may not align with the workers. (They make money from dues, so it is often better off to replace higher paid workers with more lower skilled workers)
Union workers who do not like a particular policy, are often relegated to a dead end job, or ostracize in one way or an other.
The Union forces something that no longer allows the company to operate.
The parent company may just close that location and move to a more profitable location.
High performing worker may have to leave a job they like, because the Union will not give them a promotion opportunity.
The parent company switches from being lax about some of its rules, to becoming hard noes on them. For example if an employee came in drunk at work, they may just scold them, but after they are unionized and it was one of the factors where they can fire a person, they may just fire them on the spot, because they can.
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I've always been on the fence about unions.
Having worked in production in the past, I've seen (contracted) employers take advantage of lower-skilled and/or migrant workers as a way to pay lower wages, or else having longer working hours in non-ideal conditions (think Amazon delivery drivers). In those situations I can see a union being beneficial.
But then I've look at certain unions go well beyond what is necessary to "protect" workers, and actually hurting the business' production, efficiency, and/or bott
Re:DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Like everything else, the results are better when providers have to compete for business.
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and neither can union membership be required as a part of employment.
That's a very good point - it's also why I'm glad I don't work in a heavily-unionized industry (like automobile manufacturing) - one union somewhere can disrupt work for other areas of the industry (which may not be unionized itself).
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"Unions would work better if employees had the ability to choose between competing unions (...) No company should be able to disallow employees from joining a union and neither can union membership be required as a part of employment"
That's exactly the way it works in Europe.
It's not perfect, either, but I think, much better. The problem comes that, in the end, unions become quite like political parties so prone to oligopolies and their leaders as much exposed to (illegal & legal) bribery as any other
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Unions would work better if employees had the ability to choose between competing unions.
While you are probably correct, we all know that will never happen. The fundamental goal of a union is to have complete control over the supply of labor. Businesses are forbidden by law from cooperating against a union but the union is permitted to have a monopoly.
Competing Unions is just Balkinization (Score:4, Interesting)
What are unions for? (Score:2)
Seems to be the more insightful of the two most insightful comments so moderated. I'm mostly responding to your third paragraph, but parts of this reply span other aspects.
There are various interests involved in running any company. The managers obviously have a big advantage because they start with the executive powers. The customers have leverage, at least when they have real options to shop with other stores (though that doesn't really apply when a monopsony like Amazon has cornered the suppliers). The s
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Unions are not always a net positive gain to the worker.
I would agree with this statement. I've witnessed some of your observations personally. I would add that most unions are stuck 50 years in the past, and their goals no longer reflect the values of members.
Union goals tend to be largely financial, with some protections against discrimination. However, the US labor force is not strictly financially motivated. Corporate culture is important to people. I think a lot of workers view unions as having a negative impact on culture.
That's just one example.
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I think if unions would just stay with helping working conditions and pay, they will remain relevant. The problem is typically when unions believe they should have a say on how the business is run that causes the whole situation go off the tracks.
Re:DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Precisely, most people that think unions are a good idea have probably not worked in a union shop.
Most Unions actively work against the majority of their users. For example, when I was younger I worked in a food processing plant and was part of the Teamsters Union. I even met Jimmy Hoffa Jr. I paid money every month to the Union for the guarantee that I would be the first let go if there were any layoffs. I was also last in line for the better shifts and easier positions. Back then I didn't even have the option of not joining the union.
It wasn't cheap either. I believe that they took the equivalent of 5 hours of my hourly pay out of every 2 week paycheck (80 hours). It's been a while, so I don't remember the precise details. Of course, I had options, so I went somewhere else. It was worth a 6% raise to me to accept a position at the same hourly wage at a place that wasn't a Teamster shop.
There were, of course, people that felt differently. My experience shows that they fell into one of two camps. The first and largest group was the people that felt that the union was protecting them, but the fact of the matter was that their jobs were never in any sort of jeopardy. They were hard workers and they made the company money. There was no way that management would willingly let those people go. In fact, many of these people were lower seniority workers that simply didn't realize that their low seniority actually put them at risk. If there were going to be layoffs they would be the first to go despite the fact that management would try to hang onto them if they were given a choice. Interestingly enough many of them were also in lower paying positions, and probably would have been paid better if management could promote them without union problems. Many of these people also didn't realize how much the union was costing them. The money was taken directly out of their paycheck, and they saw the union dues as a just another tax. The union would have been disbanded immediately if the workers had to actually write a check.
The other group that felt differently, and it was generally a much smaller group, were those people that were clearly taking advantage of the situation. They were the people that the union was actually protecting. Management would have fired (or demoted) them if they could, but they couldn't. Some of those people probably arguably deserved the protection. I knew of one guy that was actually a pretty good worker, he was just an annoying complainer. He made the workplace worse for the rest of us, but he got his stuff done. In my experience most of these people tended to be personal friends of the union steward. Our steward was a pretty good guy, and the plant was always hiring, and so the abuse was light. However, there was still a measurable difference between what some people could get away with and what other people could get away with. As someone with low seniority the system definitely wasn't working for me, and that was arguably true for over half of the Teamster's I worked with.
You need to go easy on the Kool Aid (Score:3, Interesting)
5 hours of your work per week would be cheap next to having your pay slashed in half. That's about what's been done, adjusted for inflation, to meat packers and food workers since their Unions were broken.
I notice you put it in "hours" to make it sound like the Union stole life from you. I don't know if you are doing this on purpose but your parroting anti-Union talking points. My guess, given your very low
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And yet, unions have done a great service to the worker. You're looking at modern unions that have become complacent and have forgotten how to be relevant again.
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Parent comment reads as an abused dog rationalizing it's own pain: You're only getting kicked here, but if you go to another yard you might get set on fire.
That's not how the parent comment reads. That's you making a conscious decision to read it that way (while hurling an ad hominen rather than trying to address said comments with some logical counter-arguments.)
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Well, in this case, that is true ONLY if you assume that having a union is actually a positive thing.
If I were only making $15/hour, I'd really hate to be forced to give part of that to the union in mandatory dues, and have that money also potentially be used to support political candidates and parties I may not agree with or support...and be at their mercy as to when I might have to stop work (strikes), etc...
So, its not a bad thing
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Democracy works best with an educated and confident population that isn't easily convinced by rhetoric. Luckily, education level, confidence, and resistance to BS rhetoric is an acquirable trait.
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The sad thing is that the people voting against this don't realize that the only way for an average person to have a reasonably good life is to go back to those "Norma Rae" days. Sure, things are great if you're some web developer working for a FAANG or startup; you're making junior executive style money. However, it's very easy to forget how bad most people have it. Most people are stuck working a job they hate, often dangerous and stressful, without the benefits of union representation and the higher wage
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I have no personal experience with unions, but my wife was born a coalminer's daughter, and she hates unions with a fiery passion. She says the union bosses drove the nicest cars in town, and when they said, "Strike!" her dad had to stop going to work or risk violence. Relatives and church would help with food, but the union gave nothing to anyone.
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Same for my dad and his family. They utterly loathed the unions. My grandfather would virtually spit every time he heard the word--he hated how the unions protected lazy, useless, or even dangerous employees if they had the right connections.
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