[HN Gopher] Amazon Unlawfully Confiscated Union Literature, NLRB...
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Amazon Unlawfully Confiscated Union Literature, NLRB Finds
Author : cf100clunk
Score : 239 points
Date : 2021-08-03 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The surveillance seems like the more troubling ruling. Having a
| security guard stand outside a union meeting and photograph the
| attendants seems like a thinly veiled threat, and if I were in
| that situation I would likely jump ship.
| underseacables wrote:
| I think Amazon should be allowed to confiscate union literature,
| because it is disruptive to the work environment. Talk about
| unions outside of work, not at work.
| the-dude wrote:
| So what is allowed at work? Only work?
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Better not get caught discussing the company softball team on
| the clock, right?
| eganist wrote:
| > I think Amazon should be allowed to confiscate union
| literature, because it is disruptive to the work environment.
| Talk about unions outside of work, not at work.
|
| This is likely to be illegal under current regulations:
| https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
| (site currently down as of this comment)
|
| > For example, your employer cannot prohibit you from talking
| about the union during working time if it permits you to talk
| about other non-work-related matters during working time.
|
| That said, (edited) the NLRB seems more likely to be aligned
| with the employer if the talk _actually_ disrupts work.
| https://www.natlawreview.com/article/shhh-nlrb-says-companie...
|
| Separately:
|
| https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/shop-talk-rules-unio...
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| Nowhere did it say that the employee was distracted by it, they
| just had it on their person. How would you feel if your boss
| took your phone from you, refusing to give it back until the
| end of the day since it was "distracting you" from your back
| pocket?
| lmilcin wrote:
| To be fair, it said he was "distributing" it.
|
| Though I have never heard a company to confiscate chocolates
| being distributed by employees for being distracting.
|
| I also don't think there is any legal way a company can
| confiscate anything from their own employee. They could call
| a Police maybe if they thought he is distributing something
| dangerous or damaging, but that's about it.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "I also don't think there is any legal way a company can
| confiscate anything from their own employee. "
|
| Maybe they signed somewhere, that they can. If not not,
| they maybe have to sign that, soon.
| lmilcin wrote:
| The best they can do is not allow you to bring certain
| items onto premises, but it doesn't mean they can just
| confiscate it. Not allow means they can tell you you
| can't enter with the item on your or that you have to
| leave the item with security to be stored and given back
| when you leave.
|
| This is standard practice with warehouses like that, they
| might not want you to bring things that could be mistaken
| for merchandise or could damage merchandise.
| davidcbc wrote:
| Which other laws should Amazon be able to ignore?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Trademark it seems.. the Amazon is a place but somehow Jeff
| Bozos got a trademark.
| sokoloff wrote:
| This is not an example of Amazon ignoring laws. Apple is a
| fruit but somehow...
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I'm not bothered that much by companies ignoring rules and
| laws, i'm just deeply saddened that they don't get severely
| punished when they get caught (and that they don't get caught
| more). I mean.. why obey the law, if it's not enforced?
|
| And even when they do get punished, they sometimes get fined
| less, than what they earner/saved by not following the laws.
|
| I would turn around from amazon and start pointing fingers at
| people responsible, (and paid by taxpayers money) for not
| stopping and punishing/preventing amazon from doing more of
| such stuff. Fines should be a multiple of maximum theoretical
| earnings/savings possible + individuals responsible should be
| put infront of the judge too.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| Any it can get away with. That's the reality of it.
| Enforcement is important.
| usea wrote:
| An activity being in their interests is not a good enough
| reason to be allowed to do it. Is there anything you would
| prohibit them from doing, even though it might benefit them?
| Animats wrote:
| This could work out. Each time the employer violates an NRLB rule
| during an organizing campaign, even if the employer wins, there's
| another election in 3 months. Until the union wins or the
| employer stops breaking the rules.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| This infraction is about a different Amazon facility, it is
| unrelated to the vote to unionize.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| Can we start with unionizing the tech industry. Pay rates are
| fixed. You cannot promote someone fast or fire someone based on
| performance. Let's try that out and see what happens. I'm not
| claiming Amazon is saint, but the fact is their pay is better
| than most other competitors for blue collar work and there was
| a reason why employees overwhelmingly rejected the unionizing
| plan.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I think it's clear that the union wants a do-over and is
| looking for any technicality that might give them another
| chance.
|
| Does anyone really believe that the Amazon employees voted
| against the union because Amazon removed some union material
| from the break room one day? Of course not. The employees knew
| what they were voting for and were fully capable of researching
| it themselves.
|
| The real question is what does the union plan on doing
| differently to sway the employees to vote differently next
| time? Repeatedly trying to overrule the employees about their
| own voted decisions isn't likely to be popular among those who
| voted against the union, which is most of them. They'll need a
| better narrative on top of this if they want to get anywhere.
|
| Or alternatively, maybe they don't care so much about this
| election as they do about making Amazon look bad. Maybe they
| know these workers don't want to unionize, but they're going to
| use this opportunity to try to convince the public that the
| workers were misled by Amazon. If they can't win the workers at
| this location, maybe they can try to win the public on a wave
| of anti-Amazon publicity for a do-over in another location.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| > Does anyone really believe that the Amazon employees voted
| against the union because Amazon removed some union material
| from the break room one day? Of course not.
|
| The truth is I don't think I know what it's like to live as
| an Amazon warehouse worker. When I grew up in California I
| didn't learn anything about unions until I was like 30 years
| old. Now to me unionization makes perfect rational sense, so
| I had assumed the union vote failed due to a lack of
| knowledge about unions amongst the workers. Like if you're a
| busy worker who needs their job and is afraid of company
| retaliation and you really don't have time to go to meetings
| and learn about the law and you can't really take a risk,
| then the "safe" thing is to vote no. Until I really learned
| about worker power, I probably would have done the same.
|
| So actually yes I can see how Amazon removing literature
| could have impacted the vote. Looking at the original count:
|
| "The result of the NLRB's initial vote count was 1,798 votes
| against the union and 738 in favor." [1]
|
| The article also says are 6000 workers at the plant. So the
| question is, could the literature have helped 531 people
| change their mind, or brought more in from the non voting
| crowd? Seems perfectly plausible.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/the-amazon-
| union...
| dasudasu wrote:
| If it had no influence, then why remove the material and
| break the law?
| nerfhammer wrote:
| should we presume this was strategically ordered by upper
| management and not just someone at the location just
| assumed outside material wasn't allowed?
| eli wrote:
| yes
| tablespoon wrote:
| > should we presume this was strategically ordered by
| upper management and not just someone at the location
| just assumed outside material wasn't allowed?
|
| They don't even need to do that. It's far smarter to set
| a policy forbidding that, then set up the incentives so
| some lower level guy feels a lot of pressure to break it.
| If he does, he's your fall guy. That way you can have
| your cake and eat it too: unethical conduct to support
| your objectives, muddy enough waters to shield you from
| blame, and a nice little PR show about how ethical you
| are and how much you care.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Rules are rules. If Amazon wants to keep the shop Union free,
| they have to do the hard work of persuading people rather
| than doing illegal shit.
| lmilcin wrote:
| > I think it's clear that the union wants a do-over and is
| looking for any technicality that might give them another
| chance.
|
| Well, what do you expect?
|
| If Amazon was innocent here they could just let people vote
| whenever they want and people would most likely not vote for
| union (because they would not have reason).
|
| Instead they chose to fight against the vote which is not
| exactly inspiring confidence in their innocence, especially
| when they bend and break the law in the process.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I've heard this line of reasoning before, but it feels weak
| & the absurdity is obvious if you apply it to any other
| scenario (replace "Amazon" and "union" with "Republican"
| and "Democrat" & then swap the positions around - it's not
| a valuable statement as it conveys very little information
| beyond virtue signalling & an appeal to emotion).
|
| If you don't show up and present your case, the other side
| could win by default, not because they make the best case.
|
| You're basically advocating for presenting a one-sided view
| to people and having them make a decision that way. This
| would imply that the union has a morally higher ground but
| I find that hard to believe as a union is just composed of
| people who are going to just employ the same tactics as
| Amazon if they could (albeit more limited at this time due
| to financial & structural reasons).
| lmilcin wrote:
| Is concept of union perfect? No it is not.
|
| But the point is that in a sufficiently large corporation
| people mean shit and the company has disproportionate
| power over individual employees.
|
| For example, in a small town with one large company there
| might just not be any other jobs.
|
| The whole point of unions is to discriminate against the
| employer, to provide some leverage to employees to not be
| completely treated like shit.
|
| If you are sufficiently large company you need to take
| correspondingly large responsibility and costs of
| maintaining that workforce.
|
| In my view Amazon falls into both "sufficiently large"
| category as well as history of being shitty employer.
|
| It is not a one-sided process, Amazon has already had
| great many chances to show they can do better but they
| chose to not use those chances to correct their behavior.
| Frondo wrote:
| The NLRB is the one making the recommendation for a new
| election, and, since they found that Amazon interfered with
| the election not just by removing this material, but in a
| number of other ways, why _shouldn 't_ they recommend holding
| a new election?
|
| What's the alternative? When corporations violate labor law
| and interfere with union elections, do nothing about it? More
| broadly, if Amazon trusted the employees to research and vote
| of their own volition, why interfere (as determined by the
| NLRB) at all?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| > Does anyone really believe that the Amazon employees voted
| against the union because Amazon removed some union material
| from the break room one day?
|
| Except that's not the only thing that happened, which is
| clear in the opening paragraph of the article. Their were
| multiple infractions, one of which (giving "workers the
| impression that their organizing activity was being
| surveilled") would definitely without a question would cause
| people to vote against a union and be fearful of getting
| involved or gathering more information. And regardless of how
| many times it happened, it was illegal.
| caoilte wrote:
| Both sides are following a standard script. Do you really
| believe that the only thing did Amazon did wrong was removing
| some literature? That's just like nailing Capone for not
| paying his taxes. The union found something that stuck and
| they went with it. Amazon will carry on intimidating
| employees to vote against and bringing in temporary external
| employees to boost the electorate with people who the union
| don't know exist.
|
| If Amazon weren't an awful employer maybe they'd actually let
| their employees decide what they wanted instead of hiring
| union busting private security like Pinkertons.
|
| Not that I think this union drive will succeed any time soon.
| gkoberger wrote:
| I think they're betting that most people at Amazon were pro-
| Union but had a "I'm worried Amazon will find out my vote, so
| I'll let others do the voting for me" mentality. And now that
| it lost, they're hoping it's a wake-up call that votes
| matter.
|
| I think the accusation that Amazon "gave workers the
| impression that their organizing activity was being
| surveilled" makes it clear the union believes people were
| afraid to vote.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Until the union wins_
|
| I think that's hyperbole and could be left at the second half
| of your sentence:
|
| > _Until ... the employer stops breaking the rules._
|
| However, I also think that simply having another election isn't
| sufficient. I honestly believe that interference like this is
| clearly unlawful and should be criminally punished as such.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I honestly believe that interference like this is clearly
| unlawful and should be criminally punished as such.
|
| It is _clearly_ unlawful, but is it _criminally_ unlawful?
| gentleman11 wrote:
| As soon as somebody from the upper crust person seems
| likely to be guilty of breaking a law, they law stops being
| one that is criminal to break. Historically, most laws were
| to protect the aristocracy from unhappy and desperate
| commoners. Even the bail system is based on keeping the
| poor locked up but letting the affluent go home, since the
| poor are considered the dangerous ones
|
| Steal a chocolate bar? Jail. Poaching in the kings forest?
| Death. Caught with drugs without a lawyer? Jail and
| possible death depending on the jail conditions
|
| Manipulate an election via gerrymandering or lose a million
| peoples life savings in crooked finance deals? Dumping
| dangerous chemicals in the local river/lake? Editorial in
| that weeks paper about how that person should feel bad,
| plus a bonus
| inetknght wrote:
| > _It is clearly unlawful, but is it criminally unlawful?_
|
| Well I am not a lawyer. But some searching suggests
| interference violates Section 7 or Section 8 of the NLRB.
| The NLRB website [0] appears to be down for me at the
| moment so I can't look up exact info though.
|
| [0]: https://www.nlrb.gov/
|
| Edit: the site is still sorta spotty but sometimes works.
|
| [1]: https://www.nlrb.gov/guidance/key-reference-
| materials/nation...
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Like in many other activities, a "do over" is benefits one
| side or the other. When used as a punishment for cheating,
| the do over is usually waived if the team who is being
| punished lost. See a lot of the objections in legal cases,
| which are not appealed by the winners but would be if they
| lost.
| inetknght wrote:
| Unfortunately leaving it at just a "do over" does actual
| harm to employees; namely that their unjust compensation
| and work conditions aren't rectified through union action.
| As long as that's cheaper to Amazon then there's no
| incentive to change. And so I still believe that this a do
| over is good direction but not enough.
| infogulch wrote:
| A good example of this is in American Football where a team
| can waive a flag (heh) that penalizes the other team and
| replays the down if they prefer the outcome of the play
| above the potential penalty. A common example, team A
| passes but the pass is intercepted by team B player, then a
| player on A does a "holding" foul on the player that did
| the interception. The punishment for holding usually means
| you redo the play, but that would give the ball back to
| team A, clearly team B prefers to keep possession due to
| interception over slightly punishing and redoing the play
| with the ball back in A's possession.
| bena wrote:
| Point of order, that would likely be offensive pass
| interference.
|
| A more common scenario is the defensive team commits an
| offsides penalty. This is essentially a free play for the
| offense since they can take the penalty if anything goes
| wrong, but if they're able to advance the ball a
| significant amount, they can decline the penalty.
| somethingwitty1 wrote:
| I understand what you are trying to get at, but the
| holding you described occurred after the interception
| (the turnover). So Team B can accept the penalty and
| would still have the ball.
|
| A slight change of ordering makes your point. Team A
| drops back to pass and holds a Team B player going
| towards Team A QB. The QB then throws an interception. In
| that scenario, Team B would decline the holding penalty,
| upholding the interception.
| bena wrote:
| You can't commit holding on the ball carrier. It would
| have to occur before the catch, and in that case, it's
| offensive pass interference.
|
| Regardless, your second example, of the offense
| committing holding and the defense declining due to an
| interception is legit. That happens occasionally.
| somethingwitty1 wrote:
| The actual infraction isn't _that_ important (I just
| interpreted they meant some infraction), but what is
| important is that they stated the foul happened after the
| interception, so it could not be OPI, as that must occur
| after the QB throws and before the player intercepts.
|
| Edit: I think we just took what was more important for
| the OPs point differently. I took the point as a penalty
| occurred, not a specific one. And you see it as "how
| could holding have happened". Which, if we are being
| pedantic, also wouldn't happen in the scenario you
| described. If it was called holding, it would have had to
| occur before the pass, making it not OPI. =).
| vmception wrote:
| interfere with creating a union? believe it or not, jail
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It's also likely to increase union votes. People typically
| respond poorly to petty intimidation.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Note how security guards are being employed to carry out the will
| of management, even though no safety/security situation obtains.
|
| In general, security arrangements involve a transaction of
| unquestioning obedience to authority in exchange for preferential
| treatment, which can then be leveraged by the authority holder to
| pursue illegitimate ends, eg doing things that are outside the
| legal scope of managers (in the private sector) or elected
| officials (in the public). Because security personnel are
| delegated enforcement authority, instant challenges to them are
| treated as breaches of security; challenges can only be made
| administratively, even though the act of enforcement can change
| the fact situation sufficiently to render the administrative
| challenge impossible or moot (ie people give up because pursuing
| the administrative route is often not worth the trouble).
|
| The security officer's dilemma is that doing their job requires
| them to not think very much about what they are asked to do. If
| they begin to have thoughts of their own about what is ethical or
| not and decline to assist an authority figure who asks them to do
| something unethical, then they risk loss of their security status
| and are suddenly treated as a security problem themselves. It's
| int he interest of authority figures to excuse and cover for
| minor lapses of security officer behavior so that when the
| authority figure wants something illegitimate, they have leverage
| over their security apparatus. Overly scrupulous security
| personnel don't get promoted.
|
| It's worth considering that a high portion of our economy is
| based on the use of guard labor (not including regular law
| enforcement) and that this may have or perpetuate distorting
| economic effects:
| https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Economics/Faculty/Glenn_Lo...
| chad_strategic wrote:
| A key issue that is not clearly defined in article.
|
| Was the security officer in question, did he/she work for
| Amazon? Or was he/she a contractor to Amazon? Most security
| officers are contract
|
| Contractors (security officers) can be hung out to dry
| (terminated) and Amazon can say the security office was not
| following the Standard Operating Procedures of the contract.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _Note how security guards are being employed to carry out the
| will of management_
|
| Yes, it falls under the concept of "Guard Labor", basically any
| workers who don't contribute even indirectly to planning and
| management or implementation of projects & initiatives. That
| can be actual guards, managers whose only purpose is to make
| sure people are doing their job, etc. Work required to keep the
| status quo as the status quo.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_labor
| cratermoon wrote:
| I wonder if the security guards belong to a union.
| blunte wrote:
| Can we just be honest and say that Amazon - it's leadership,
| especially Bezos - is greedy/sociopathic and frankly detrimental
| to long term human survival (based on the zero-sum approach to
| success), but that it's so convenient that we privileged people
| will still buy stuff off Amazon?
|
| As with factory farming, if people could see the conditions which
| their "food" (living beings) were subjected to, they would make
| different decisions... we would probably make different buying
| decisions if we had friends or family who worked in the worst
| jobs for Amazon.
|
| I used to love bacon...
| cwkoss wrote:
| With Bezos abdicating CEO, will be interesting to see to what
| extent lack of his influence will change company culture.
|
| I expect the rot is pervasive throughout the c-level, but hope
| to be surprised.
| ggm wrote:
| Because my engagement with unions has only been positive, I am
| interested in the amazing number of people who seem motivated to
| say how negatively they feel about unions. I get that in an
| oppositional sense, if you don't want what a union wants, then
| they tend to cast into the bad, but for the middle ground who are
| not VCs, owners, Managers, and are candidates for union
| membership, I find it really strange how much people cast them
| into a class of "money grabbers for no benefit"
|
| Do people feel the same about life insurance, car insurance? Its
| not that you actually intend being harrassed or sacked (fall ill,
| have a car accident) It's that you don't want to find yourself on
| the wrong side of an employment dispute (accident claim) without
| some insurance.
|
| Unions may be taking your hard earned money. They may be doing
| things which you don't like (do I love my car insurance company?)
| But, they have a neccessary role in risk management.
|
| We talk about risk management in the ICT sector all the time. Why
| can't we talk about risk management for labour hire?
|
| Amazon used "dirty tricks" to win this election. I am sure the
| Union bust some minor rules too, but overall I am reasonably
| confident that the vote was neither free, nor fair. I also do
| think there is no latent 100% pro-union vote out there, and that
| a large number of the polled workers don't want a union, or the
| cost of the union, or the risk of jobloss from Amazon if they
| join the union (which is illegal but still has a risk of
| happening) -So I don't for a minute believe a re-vote will
| magically reverse the signal with an overwhelming result.
|
| What interests me, is the basis for opposition to the union in
| the first place. Do people really think the garment workers in
| New York were backing the wrong horse? Do people think the
| machineguns which Ford arranged to turn on a union march in
| Detroit didn't happen?
|
| "oh, that would never happen now..."
| chad_strategic wrote:
| This might be unpopular opinion but...
|
| More robots and more automation comes on line everyday, soon
| there will be less and less employees at these facilities
| regardless of unions.
|
| Unions or government regulation where not able to save the type
| writer or the typewriter union.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Women_Clerks_an...
| dissolved in 1989
|
| The market(capitalism) is going to do what the market(capitalism)
| does.
| _jal wrote:
| That's a fine opinion. I happen to agree that some what you
| imply is true.
|
| But you can claim that about a lot of things that we choose to
| treat differently. Property crime is inevitable, and yet we
| devote significant resources to fighting that. Same with death.
|
| If you don't want to devote resources to figuring out what to
| do with a lot of "surplus humanity", they'll help you make up
| your mind later.
| paxys wrote:
| It's not an unpopular opinion but rather pretty obvious. That
| does not in any way change the fact that Amazon is beholden to
| the employees it has right now and still needs to follow labor
| laws. They are welcome to simultaneously build as many robots
| as they want.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Why wouldn't robots be in unions in the future? It will be part
| of giving robots human rights and social progress. You won't be
| able to own robots like they are slaves. Robots will demand and
| get more.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "The market(capitalism) is going to do what the
| market(capitalism) does. "
|
| And unions do, what unions do: try to negotiate better
| conditions for their members. Whether they provide a net
| benefit to society, is a different and I think very case
| specific question.
| kazen44 wrote:
| also, the market/capitalism doesn't do what capitalism does.
| Society functions in that construct because it is still
| beneficial for the majority of its population Revolutions
| rarely happen over pure ideological reasons. Usually,
| ideology is used as a means to an end for a given situation.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| This is awesome!
|
| I would argue that all revolutions/wars are not
| ideological, there is always underlying economic component
| to it.
| criddell wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with that opinion but you aren't
| considering all the other things unions do for their members.
|
| A union can't make those jobs last forever but it can try to
| make working conditions better for as long as the job lasts.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| >The NLRB's report on the Bessemer election found that Amazon
| illegally discouraged labor organizing, in part by pushing post
| office officials to install a mailbox outside the warehouse where
| workers were urged to drop their mail-in ballots, which an NLRB
| officer wrote "destroyed the laboratory conditions and justifies
| a second election."
|
| Stupid question: how does getting a new post box discourage
| organising? I feel like I'm missing some clever trick...
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| > Amazon had a ballot collection box installed in an employee
| parking lot "without authorization" from the NLRB's regional
| director. The NLRB definitively denied Amazon's request for a
| drop box on the warehouse property. Amazon installed one
| anyway. The box was placed under the view of Amazon security
| cameras, creating "an impression of surveillance." An employee
| testified to having seen company security guards open the
| mailbox.
|
| In general, if you have a postbox tied to the company, then
| only people supporting the company will feel comfortable using
| it. Hence the votes will be biased anti-union.
| plandis wrote:
| But why? The post box is presumably run by the USPS, not
| Amazon.
| post-it wrote:
| > An employee testified to having seen company security
| guards open the mailbox.
|
| If this is true, then apparently not.
| 28053144 wrote:
| "An employee testified to having seen company security
| guards open the mailbox."
|
| Ignore the "testified" part -- even if this was just a
| rumor that somebody started, imagine the impact it would
| have.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Wait a minute, I thought mail-in ballots and ballot drop boxes
| were beyond reproach? Clearly not. But only when the stakes are
| lower than a federal election, apparently.
| Y-bar wrote:
| > After the box was installed, Amazon sent a text message to
| workers urging them to vote against the union and to use the
| mailbox outside of their facilities--where Amazon surveillance
| cameras were trained.
|
| From an earlier article on the subject.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| slownews45 wrote:
| I do worry it's a bad sign for union organizing if these are
| the types of issues they are focused on. A USPS post office box
| outside the warehouse. I mean, this is the big deal justifying
| a second election? I don't get it. The ballots are in
| envelopes, the envelopers or in a PO box. Heck, some people
| mail things (where I am) but dropping it on office managers
| deck in a box for outgoing mail.
|
| Because normal people are not filing complaints about the
| OPTION to use a mailbox run by USPS -> this just doesn't feel
| that compelling as a reason to run an entire election over.
| caoilte wrote:
| It's hard to prove that Amazon manipulated the USPS postbox
| (even though there is good evidence) but it's easy to prove
| that they violated the rules by setting up a postbox that was
| easy for them to manipulate and which they practically forced
| employees to use.
|
| Reminds me of Sicily. Most local people used to go into the
| voting booth with a friend of the local mayor. They didn't
| have to. They could have gone alone. Hell, they could have
| complained that they were being intimidated. Strangely they
| didn't... You'd have fit in well.
| ericol wrote:
| Whatever you think of union, take this into account: You
| shouldn't be basing your opinions on your biases. Replace "Union
| Literature" with:
|
| - Soccer Literature
|
| - LGBT+ Literature
|
| - Harry Potter Literature
|
| Do you agree with all this to also be confiscated would it be
| freely distributed at work?
| [deleted]
| valbaca wrote:
| What a beautiful example of false equivalence. Union literature
| has special protection because it's a certain type of
| literature. You cannot just "replace" with what you want.
| Certain things are protected by law. That's how laws work.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_o...
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| The comments in this whole thread point on a severe lack of
| understanding around labor laws and ethics. At the same time
| it attracts the archetypal free-market laissez faire pseudo
| intellectual.
| tablespoon wrote:
| I don't know what it is about software engineers, but it
| seems like there's a whole lot of them who seem to think
| you can learn everything you need to know about the world
| from one or two volumes of libertarian polemics.
| kristopolous wrote:
| There's quite a few narratives surrounding the industry
| that attract such types.
|
| Tech culture is infested with Horatio Alger stories of
| supposedly hard work, grit and gumption leading to
| success and riches. When you get Sand Hill Road investors
| they constrict an origin story with you that follows this
| path. So luck and pre-existing family wealth and
| connections get written out of the stories of people like
| Musk, Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, you name it.
|
| Only after careful readings do you get to "wow this rich
| smart kid was incredibly lucky"
|
| Instead, all these things work together to promote an
| illusion of unbiased meritocracy where if you got a
| clever idea and work hard you'll make it. The rich,
| smart, and luck get scrubbed out and replaced with a
| "Flowering of New England" Protestant Work Ethic.
|
| For the more cynical people they go to the likes of
| Christensen, Geoffrey Moore, Drucker, Steve Blank, Ries &
| Trout, Blanchard, etc who are certainly not critical of
| free markets, labor or capitalism in any way.
|
| You walk away from them with a less trusting and more cut
| throat version of essentially the same story.
|
| So it's constantly reinforced which is why it's really
| not that surprising that programming has a lot of people
| who frankly believe in essentially free market magic,
| unfounded hogwash and other nonsense, it's the only thing
| on offer.
|
| The myth of fantastic riches that avail themself to those
| who struggle is essentially one of the most common
| narrative archetypes there is. It's thousands of years
| old, even the cornerstone of many religions.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| Ironic, because the comment you are replying to is
| completely wrong.
|
| Labor laws are stupidly complicated and a single one liner
| from an HN comment is almost guaranteed to be wrong in some
| way. You shouldn't believe anything you read in an HN
| comments thread about them, on either side of the issue
| (including this one, because I'm probably wrong in some
| fashion too!)
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| In this particular example, it's not a false equivalence at
| all. The NLRB specifically _does not_ give special protection
| to union literature. As long as the employer treats all
| literature equally (such as soccer literature, harry potter
| literature, etc), they are allowed to ban non-work literature
| in work areas during work time. Union literature does not get
| any special treatment.
|
| see: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/shop-talk-rules-
| unio...
| cratermoon wrote:
| Yes, they can ban _all_ literature, or they can ban none of
| it. They can 't ban some and allow some, which is what
| happened here.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| How do you know that's what happened here? The OP linked
| article does not contain such information.
| pavon wrote:
| According to the article you posted that only applies when
| and where employees are working. Union literature is given
| special treatment in that companies must allow it to be
| distributed in non-work areas such as the break room, which
| is where it was distributed and confiscated in this case.
| maxfurman wrote:
| Increasingly, strong unions are equally as fictional as Harry
| Potter in America.
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| You can't replace union literature with any of those things
| because they are not even close to the same thing.
| 1-more wrote:
| Replace union literature with a thermonuclear bomb set to
| explode in 90 seconds. You pinkos won't be singing the same
| tune then.
| Miner49er wrote:
| There's laws like this on both sides of union laws in the US.
| Certain things that are protected activities, and then there's
| things that unions can't do, too. It's not like this is a one-
| sided thing. Unions have protections like this, but also limits
| in US law.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Yes, I don't like Harry Potter and I shouldn't have to hear
| about him if I don't want to.
|
| All this can take place off site.
| slumpt_ wrote:
| Fortunately the law disagrees with your regressive, anti-
| employee perspective.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Are you familiar with at-will employment?
|
| If I'm the owner of company and employee talks to be about
| Harry Potter in the break room. Later that day, or on the
| spot, I can terminate that employee, without cause or
| reason.
|
| Sure they the employee can sue me for wrongful termination,
| but the laws are stacked against the employee. (I have been
| on both side of the argument.)
|
| Please reference a law to support your claim.
|
| You might want to study up on your law, history and
| economics.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| I think you either haven't actually read the article, any
| of the replies in this thread or you're just a troll.
|
| We're not here to educate you, just look up the current
| US labor laws and see for yourself whether or not your
| argument has any standing.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| >Please reference a law to support your claim.
|
| ?
| decebalus1 wrote:
| If I do reference a law to support that claim, do you
| promise to stop posting on HN?
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Having worked extensively with employment law and little
| union work I feel comfortable you will never find an
| example.
|
| However there never can be can be a resolution to your
| proposal, so with that I will have to pass on your
| entertaining offer.
|
| I will just leave this here for anybody who cares about
| employment law.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
| decebalus1 wrote:
| From your link:
|
| > The National Labor Relations Act provides protection to
| employees who wish to join or form a union and those who
| engage in union activity. The act also protects employees
| who engage in a concerted activity.
|
| That's the law you should be looking for. Check it out.
| It has some provisions about distributing union
| literature in break rooms and stuff. Pretty interesting.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| If it's unlawful, will Amazon be punished? Doesn't breaking the
| law usually mean punishment?
| Coriolis3 wrote:
| People get punished. Corporations receive (at most) a small
| fine that usually amounts to far less than what their crimes
| netted them.
| arberx wrote:
| It's impossible for me to have a positive view of Amazon (the
| company) at this point. There's way too much evidence pointing to
| the contrary.
| paxys wrote:
| Is it possible to have a positive view of any large company?
| They are all doing a lot of good things and a few bad things.
| Beyond that it depends on how good their PR department is.
| arberx wrote:
| Hmm maybe "positive view" is the wrong approach. I think
| "impossible to not have a negative view" is better wording.
|
| Indiffernce is generally how I feel about a lot of companies.
|
| My perspective on Amazon is negative.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Would like to know if there are any large companies that
| actually defy this general rule. Costco is a common counter-
| example, but even they're imperfect:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/business/costco-5-dollar-
| chic...
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Few people expect perfection.
| newsyyswen wrote:
| I wonder when the change happened. It seems like there's a
| fairly broad consensus now, but different people seem to cite
| different time periods for when things took a bad turn.
|
| I had consistently great experiences ~3-8 years ago, but I
| remember needing to be careful about 3rd party sellers towards
| the end of that time period.
|
| Thing is, I stopped ordering online about a year before the
| pandemic started. When I returned to Amazon 18 months ago, it
| felt like the balance had shifted towards the majority of
| listings being fraud/low quality/unexpectedly comingled/etc.
|
| Personally, I blame a shift in perspective. It feels like their
| retail teams' views on who "The Customer" was shifted from the
| person placing the order, to the 3rd-party sellers.
|
| When do y'all think that happened? 2015? 2017? 2019?
| onli wrote:
| For me I can restore it in my blog. At the beginning of 2019
| a first article about how Amazon might not be the best option
| to buy everything anymore, citing the bad quality of user
| reviews, the potential problem with fakes and the subpar
| experience with the website (specifically: The search
| evidently being skewed towards sponsored and not towards good
| offers, and missing filters to find products by their
| properties). Then summer 2019 a report on a disastrous
| support experience (in a case that included a received
| obvious fake) and the decision to not buy there anymore.
|
| That was very fast, in retrospective. I liked Amazon quite a
| bit before that, the early 2019 articles even clearly reads
| like that. No criticism before that. Instead a few positive
| support experiences.
|
| But that's just me, and not necessarily a US perspective. The
| fake problem for example I thought to be more prominent
| outside of Europe. On the other hand, that amazon seemed to
| fight against unions had been reported here before, to
| boycott the site because of that was a fairly common
| position.
|
| Also, I wonder how it would have been if I had been more
| invested into the ecosystem - there is no Kindle in my home,
| no Echo, and I started to buy there relatively late. Though a
| site of mine used their affiliate marketing program even back
| in 2011...
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It's not just views on Amazon as a company to do business
| with. Attitudes around these parts have soured on Amazon as a
| company to work for too.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I find it weird that this attitude change might be recent.
| As early as 2015 people were writing about what a pressure
| cooker Amazon's white-collar workplace is[1]. I also had
| acquaintances who worked there and reported that it's a
| pretty punishing environment as early as 2008. I guess it
| takes 10+ years for this kind of perception to permeate?
|
| [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgbzbx/at-amazon-
| employees-t...
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I've personally only noticed (and thought) of Amazon as a
| bad place to work as an engineer in the past 2-3 years,
| but perhaps I missed a trend.
| gdulli wrote:
| In 2007 I was considering a move to the Bay Area and I
| focused my job research first on Amazon. You can find
| negative anecdotes about any large company. But still,
| without even remembering the details, I remember that
| research resulting in a strong takeaway that I wanted to have
| nothing to do with the company.
|
| So then it was sometime around the early 2010s that the first
| wave of bad press came out about the way they treat workers,
| and I remember being unsurprised.
| haberman wrote:
| > It seems like there's a fairly broad consensus now
|
| Opinion polling shows Amazon has a 72% approval rating,
| higher than almost any other institution in America.
| https://reason.com/2021/07/06/poll-people-like-amazon-
| more-t...
| pvarangot wrote:
| The headline is tricky there. It's only higher than almost
| any of the institutions that they are asking about in that
| poll, which only includes three private companies (Amazon,
| Facebook, Twitter) and a bunch of government organizations
| or civil movements. I would guess a lot of private
| companies and most of big tech rate higher than Amazon,
| specially if they are thrown in with a bunch of things like
| ANTIFA, BLM and Israel or Palestina when they ask the
| question.
|
| Here's the poll, page 15:
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OgPzcB75uxXiFmTjUUb-
| ITIr7BF...
| haberman wrote:
| > It's only higher than almost any of the institutions
| that they are asking about in that poll [...] I would
| guess
|
| This is pure speculation. 72%, at a minimum, undermines
| the notion that there is "fairly broad consensus now"
| about viewing Amazon unfavorably. The fact that they poll
| higher than many government organizations seems
| especially relevant on an article about the NRLB.
|
| People mistake their own feelings (and the feelings of
| their social groups) for the consensus view. Polling can
| clarify when our perceptions of consensus are incorrect.
|
| > Here's the poll, page 15
|
| It's also screenshotted in the article.
| cratermoon wrote:
| 72% is a C in most schools. I wonder how they'd do
| against Comcast or Bank of America.
| [deleted]
| vitus wrote:
| Amazon's historically had pretty good favorability
| ratings, especially compared to the rest of tech.
|
| Last year, before the pandemic upended everything, it was
| at 91% according to the annual Verge Tech survey (no, I
| don't think they've posted the 2021 iteration).
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21144680/verge-tech-
| survey...
|
| Axios-Harris (Dec '20 - Feb '21) polled Amazon at #10
| with a composite score of 80%, six ranks above Apple (and
| far above others like Facebook and Twitter, which ranked
| in the bottom ten slots). But even Twitter's composite
| score was 63%, which means people can't hate it _that_
| much.
|
| https://theharrispoll.com/axios-harrispoll-100/
| cratermoon wrote:
| Remember when Consumerist ran their Worst Company in
| America series, and it was always Wal*Mart, Comcast,
| Verizon, Bank of America, or AT&T/Time-Warner in the
| final four? Makes me wonder where Amazon would end up
| today if they still ran the poll.
| notJim wrote:
| I feel that people shouldn't be surprised by this. Amazon
| delivers you stuff extremely conveniently and cheaply
| enough that you don't really need to think about it. That
| is about the extent to which most people are engaging with
| them.
| handrous wrote:
| When'd they become a shady flea market putting laughably
| little effort into policing the wares sold thereon, while
| still showing "amazon" branding all over the page and
| generally not making it clear enough that they weren't taking
| direct responsibility for the listing, and then keeping that
| up year after year because it made them a _whole fucking
| bunch_ of money and no-one made them stop, despite knowing
| that lots of their income was a result of fraud, borderline-
| scams, and unsafe or unfit-for-use-but-too-cheap-to-bother-
| returning products?
|
| I'm pretty sure that was way before 2015. That's when they
| became indefensibly-bad actors, IMO.
| vmception wrote:
| Amazon can restore good will with me by fixing their shitty
| vesting schedule. But it's probably shitty because even
| highly compensated engineers figure out that working there is
| too shitty to tolerate so they had to lock them in with
| backloaded vesting.
| rejectedandsad wrote:
| If you're so concerned about it you can just buy the stock
| with the 2 year signing bonus that makes up for the stock
| vesting.
| cratermoon wrote:
| "Give some of the money we pay you back to the company"
| vs. "here's some valuable securities which you can sell
| at some point in the near future then they are worth more
| than what you'd have paid for them".
| jreese wrote:
| I hardly think "owning stock" is the goal, rather than
| "receiving compensation". Vesting schedules that backload
| compensation to discourage quitting early are hostile to
| employees, and makes them feel unfairly "locked in"
| because they lose a disproportionate amount of their
| unvested compensation relative to the percentage of the
| vesting period that they have spent working.
|
| By comparison, Facebook vesting is evenly spread across
| four years, with refreshers granted every year, so that
| people can expect to receive relatively stable
| compensation for as long as they stay at the company.
| There's no "bad" time to leave when it comes to your
| vesting schedule, so you don't feel "locked in" for
| anything beyond the total value that you'll always be
| leaving on the table, regardless of when you leave.
| Refreshers don't even have a vesting cliff anymore, so
| you don't even feel the need to stick around for a
| particularly good batch if you don't want to.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Thing is, at this point Amazon has mastered the art of getting
| away with employee-hostile practices.
|
| Take, as a separate example, their PIP culture. The bar to get
| into amazon is fairly low (compared to peer companies) and so
| they tend to use PIP to maintain a high turnover and filter out
| unproductive employees. There's no shortage of engineers
| wanting to apply to Amazon (increasingly from overseas) and
| this churn seems to be OK because they have very good systems
| in place to onboard employees fast. For an engineer early in
| their career having AMZN on their resume can be worth the pain.
| At least among my peers in senior and staff/principal levels
| there's very little desire to jump ship to amazon though.
|
| Similarly, they can treat warehouse workers like crap because
| there are others willing to line up to take their place.
| Regardless of the conditions.
|
| What it boils down to is that many of amazon's employees simply
| don't have a better choice. And I'm not sure what can really
| help with that.
| omegaworks wrote:
| >I'm not sure what can really help with that.
|
| A basic social safety net.
| cratermoon wrote:
| I spent a year working at a very large company that's well
| known in my part of the country, not because I wanted to work
| there, but because it was nice to have on my resume. But at
| least their compensation wasn't back-loaded.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Your comment is a broad generalization, yet provides no
| examples of evidence.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Seriously? I get down-voted for calling someone out. Let me
| change the wording so we can see the hypocrisy.
|
| "It's impossible for me to have a positive view of White
| People (the company) at this point. There's way too much
| evidence pointing to the contrary."
| arberx wrote:
| A company is completely different from a group or race of
| individuals.
|
| A company is a single entity (individual).
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Not just that, but (slave labor aside) a company and its
| employees are voluntarily associated. Voluntary
| associations are the kind of thing we (as a society) are
| usually fine with judging people based on (as opposed to
| features that are relatively immutable like race).
| chad_strategic wrote:
| If you see slave labor, then you have an obligation to
| report it to your local authorities, but we all know your
| claim is baseless.
|
| The argument is a nice collection of words that
| unfortunately might buy you some "street cred" or should
| I say give a "woke" status with your liberal college
| associates. This type of carefully constructed dog
| whistle of a comment will "level up" your points here on
| this echo chamber that has become Hacker news. What is
| amusing is when placing those words in a sentence they
| fail to make a valid argument. The sheer fact you used
| the word "immutable" clearly shows the limitation of your
| vocabulary. "Immutable" in a conversation about race?
| Somebody learned a new vocabulary word and took a break
| from their (python) code and posted a comment on Hacker
| News.
|
| Now that I have successfully wasted my time getting drawn
| into a senseless debate, admittedly of my own creation. I
| should probably check on my AWS servers and maybe later
| today I will order something on Amazon, well because it
| allows me to spend more time with my family instead of
| tracking down some sprinkler parts at 5 different Home
| Depot burning up a bunch of fossil fuels. But as will
| nobody reading this comment, thread or Vice article, I
| won't be canceling my AWS account or prime account
| because of the terrible injustices of one NLBR violation
| that a security officer committed at an Amazon warehouse.
|
| Wasn't it Kennedy, who said: "Give Me Convenience or Give
| Me Death".
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The slave labor reference was an attempt to duck the
| troll who (absent it) would say "Slavery isn't a
| voluntary association with a company and X, Y, and Z are
| pretty much slavery so there".
|
| If you had bothered to engage with my actual point (that
| our social norms make it more acceptable to judge people
| on their voluntary associations and actions than on their
| involuntary features) you might be less frustrated.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| There might be section missing.
|
| Regardless, I stand by what I said.
|
| "I recommend you get back to Object Oriented Immutable
| code before your economic provider involuntary associates
| your comments on this website via the intersectionality
| and "color" privilege of bias of your comments and
| declares you are wasting the time of economic
| organization!"
|
| In plain English, get back to writing code, brogrammer.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Regardless, I stand by what I said.
|
| > "I recommend you get back to Object Oriented Immutable
| code before your economic provider involuntary associates
| your comments on this website via the intersectionality
| and "color" privilege of bias of your comments and
| declares you are wasting the time of economic
| organization!"
|
| > In plain English, get back to writing code, brogrammer.
|
| For some reason I don't think he should be the one
| worrying about being associated with his online comments.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| If you see slave labor, then you have an obligation to
| report it your local authorities.
|
| update: see above
| lmilcin wrote:
| Can you point to the law or are you making the law as you
| go?
|
| I remind you, your parent comment says "Your comment is a
| broad generalization, yet provides no examples of
| evidence."
|
| So if you point out people not putting evidence, at least
| demand the same standard for your own posts.
| lovich wrote:
| The slave labor I am aware of currently is being used by
| the authorities
| jdavis703 wrote:
| In many US localities it's illegal to discriminate
| against military veterans. Increasingly we're seeing
| police being added to lists of "protected classes" too.
| This attitude is (unfortunately) changing in society.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In many US localities it's illegal to discriminate
| against military veterans
|
| Military veterans are _federally_ protected against
| negative discrimination, and in most public employment at
| all levels, and many private employment contexts, are
| also beneficiaries of explicit positive discrimination.
| amyjess wrote:
| > In many US localities it's illegal to discriminate
| against military veterans.
|
| We also had a draft for a very long time, and I'm sure
| that when these laws were put into place, there were a
| large portion of draftees who were at risk for being
| discriminated against for something they were forced by
| the government to do.
| lmilcin wrote:
| You are being downvoted for obvious and blatant disregard
| of frequent and abundant "examples of evidence" already
| available on HN.
|
| There is so many submissions on HN regarding Amazon that I
| pretty much expect it to get its own dedicated section
| pretty soon.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| That's not my interpretation of the article.
|
| One security officer took some confiscated "material".
|
| One incident.
| lmilcin wrote:
| The article described one incident, true.
|
| But the comment was aimed at the fact there are other
| incidents regularly posted on HN.
|
| If you can't use Google, try to learn it. It is really
| fun and useful. Certainly something I would do if I were
| you, before I posted any more on the topic.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| I just googled amazon... This is what I found.
|
| 1. AWS is an incredible software/suite /cloud service
| that I use and millions of others use on regular basis.
| 2. Amazon prime allows me to purchase products at my
| convenience. 3. Amazon Fresh allows me to grocery shop
| with out having to leave the house, as grocery shopping
| can be time-consuming. 4. Amazon Prime Video isn't too
| great, but it provides healthy competition to NBC, CBS,
| NetFlix, etc... 5. If it wasn't for Amazon, Walmart would
| have become the only and number 1 relatier in America in
| the early 2000's. 6. We still have high unemployment in
| America and not enough workers. I didn't like my job a
| few years ago, so I quit and these people can to.
|
| But just a warning Mr. Amazon hater. Sounds like you got
| an axe to grind, but hey that's cool. Let me give you a
| tip, it's actually a stock tip. Get on the phone and call
| your financial advisor and tell him that you want to
| return all the profits you have made off of AMZN, because
| you feel bad the NLBR violation.
|
| What is that? You don't have own AMZN stock? Do you own
| an index stock? SPY, QQQ? Yeap you profited. Try to
| explain to your financial advisor how to give those
| profits back.
|
| Look at your hands... you are part of the problem. So you
| might want to tone down your liberal hype, well cause you
| are just making your argument look weak.
| whydoibother wrote:
| Having a normal one today I see.
|
| Do you work for Amazon PR? Or just an angry VP yelling at
| people in comments? Or some poor soul that has loyalty to
| a global corporation that would grind you to paste if it
| turned a profit?
| cratermoon wrote:
| Are you one of those "Amazon FC Ambassadors" we heard
| about? https://gizmodo.com/whats-an-amazon-fc-ambassador-
| and-are-th...
| tablespoon wrote:
| > What is that? You don't have own AMZN stock? Do you own
| an index stock? SPY, QQQ? Yeap you profited. Try to
| explain to your financial advisor how to give those
| profits back.
|
| > Look at your hands... you are part of the problem. So
| you might want to tone down your liberal hype, well cause
| you are just making your argument look weak.
|
| Ah, talk about looking weak. It's the old "you can't
| complain about this bad thing unless you live in a shack
| in the woods totally disconnected from modern society"
| argument.
| lmilcin wrote:
| This just proves my point.
|
| PLONK
| davidcbc wrote:
| The link they are commenting on is part of the evidence,
| which I assume is why they commented on it
| ahoy wrote:
| This is the comments section on that very evidence.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Anyone paying attention expected and suspected Amazon to play
| shady games. Good to see the results.
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