[HN Gopher] Amazon activist's firing deemed illegal by labor boa... ___________________________________________________________________ Amazon activist's firing deemed illegal by labor board officials Author : herbstein Score : 227 points Date : 2022-01-22 17:44 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com) | KarlKemp wrote: | I am Jeff's complete lack of surprise... | | Let's hope the complaint is sustained. It's bad enough that this | tactic is even tried. The right to unionize is meaningless if | organizers can be silenced this easily. | | It's difficult to balance at-will employment, the right to fire | people for cause, and the protection of union leaders and | members. But there have been far too many cases like this in the | last few months alone to believe these are all justified by | individuals' behavior and not attempts to stop unionization. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | > But there have been far too many cases like this in the last | few months alone to believe these are all justified by | individuals' behavior and not attempts to stop unionization. | | To play devil's advocate, a sociopath could recognize the PR | problems it creates for a company to fire someone working | toward unionization, and therefore start agitating when it | becomes clear they're about to be fired, or just before they do | something they know would otherwise be over the line. | | That doesn't mean everyone working toward unionization is a | sociopath, but the population of people fired "while | unionizing" will contain both sets of people, and therefore be | larger than you might expect. | KarlKemp wrote: | That's not "devil's advocate", that's just an example of the | meaning of "difficult to balance". | | There's this idea in the tech crowd that laws governing | circumstances that aren't quantifiable or boolean with zero | doubt or error are either entirely impossible or tantamount | to just anything-goes subjectivity of judges. | | But the entire purpose of a system of laws and the courts is | to match the ambiguity of the rules to the complexity of | life. | | Because, as it turns out, it's the cases that _can_ be | captured by a fixed set of algorithms that are almost non- | existent. Which is sort-of the problem "smart contracts" ran | into, and that motivated them to create the useless | simulation of real-world ownership that is NFTs. | AnthonyMouse wrote: | > That's not "devil's advocate", that's just an example of | the meaning of "difficult to balance". | | You expressed skepticism that this many people could be | fired for legitimate reasons while promoting unions. | | That makes sense if you assume that misconduct and union | organizing are independent variables. But since individuals | engaged in misconduct have the incentive to become union | organizers to make it more expensive for the company to | punish them, that isn't true, and the observed result would | be expected either way. | | Your original argument was that the uncertainty was | resolved. | | > But the entire purpose of a system of laws and the courts | is to match the ambiguity of the rules to the complexity of | life. | | The entire purpose of a system of laws and the courts is to | let what the law actually says happen unless the balance of | political power strongly favors something else happening, | in which case the other thing happens and a justification | gets retconned by the judge. | | We all know how big corporations work. They have a big book | of rules that nobody reads and therefore everybody violates | continuously. Then if anybody screws up or becomes | disfavored, management opens up the book to see which | rule(s) they violated so they can be punished or fired for | cause. It's the same thing that happens with laws and | prosecutors. | | It works the same way whether the reason they're getting | fired was the same as the rule they violated or not. It's | that way on purpose because it makes it easy for management | to fire someone for things they're not allowed to prohibit, | by finding something the target did which they are allowed | to prohibit. | | But that still doesn't tell you which thing it was in a | particular case, and a judge doesn't have any good way of | knowing that either. Probably the best you could do is look | at whether there were a lot of other people breaking the | rules, but everybody else has the incentive to conceal that | because anybody who admits to breaking the rules would be | subject to firing as well, which the company would have the | incentive to do both to show that they're being consistent | and to punish anyone who admits that breaking the rules is | common. | | The ambiguity was created on purpose, but that doesn't make | it easy to resolve. | stefan_ wrote: | I don't understand, did you read the article? The | ambiguity was resolved. The board ruled against Amazon. | It's just you left arguing some absurd "what if". | warent wrote: | > "One day I'm working extra hard and the supervisor just stopped | me after I took a quick break and kept saying, 'Smith, go back to | work, go back to work,'" Smith said. "I'm thinking, I'm over | here, hot, about to faint, working extra hard." | | Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and feel | anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty behavior and | Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like this. Hope | Daequan gets a massive settlement. | capableweb wrote: | > Imagine behaving this way. How do you look in the mirror and | feel anything but revulsion? Happy that this guy's shitty | behavior and Amazon's toxic culture is being put on blast like | this. Hope Daequan gets a massive settlement. | | Because from their perspective, things don't look like that. | From their point of view, it probably goes something like this: | "The worker is supposed to work extra hard, but now they are | resting, AGAIN! Now I'm gonna say something so they finally | start working again" without considering any other perspective | about situations. | | It's really hard to read people without speaking to them, and | most middle-managers just try to read people even though most | people are honestly pretty shit at doing that, so they misread | situations all the time. | | In this particular scenario, notice it says "I'm thinking..." | instead of "I said...". Not sure why they didn't tell their | supervisor "I'm hot and about to faint", but knowing the | average supervisor at Amazon, I do understand why you wouldn't | talk about it. | numpad0 wrote: | Sometimes what those kind of managers need is a complete | unnegotiable refusal. They behave abusive because they think | it's worth their time, to challenge reality by fighting your | perception. Make that worth less than nothing. CYA can be | problematic though. | vanusa wrote: | _From their point of view, it probably goes something like | this: "The worker is supposed to work extra hard, but now | they are resting, AGAIN! Now I'm gonna say something so they | finally start working again" without considering any other | perspective about situations._ | | "Because Amazon never trained me in the basics of my job as a | supervisor. Which is to understand obvious the fact in order | for our workers to be sustainably productive, they need to | take healthy rest breaks now and then -- especially during | crunch time. Otherwise Amazon will lose. And because whatever | natural sense of intuition I may have had about these issues | was thoroughly beaten out of me by the time I got through all | that Core Values training they made us do." | geofft wrote: | But... isn't that the job of a manager? | | As an SRE it's my job to make sure the computers I'm | responsible for are working properly, and to actively pay | attention and gather information about whether that's true. | If there's too much load on the site for our current set of | servers to handle, even if it's not my job to actually order | more, it's certainly my job to say something to the people | who can. If we're okay now but we won't be in a month, that's | also my job. And if a disk fills up on a server and it stops | working, "Oh, I wasn't monitoring disk space, and the program | never logged anything" is no excuse. Nor is it an excuse that | I'm not good at guessing what problems are likely to happen; | that, also, is my job and why they look for people with | experience doing this job successfully. | | Isn't there _all the more reason_ that someone whose job is | looking after people and not computers should figure out if | they 're overworked or about to be overworked and if they're | in comfortable, humane conditions? | fennecfoxen wrote: | 100%. | | And if the manager is competent and actually does this, | then he probably will end up managing something more | important than Amazon warehouses. Don't underestimate the | mediocrity and pettiness of the people who end up in charge | of petty things. | diputsmonro wrote: | I'm not at all surprised that an overworked employee wouldn't | talk back to their unreasonable boss. They need their next | paycheck to eat and pay rent, and they don't want to risk | getting immediately fired for "insubordination", or whatever | other bullshit a power hungry sociopath might pull out of | their ass in retaliation. | trhway wrote: | I have always told such managers to eat sh1t right there. Never | had any repercussions, they need us more. We can do the work, | they can't. | AussieWog93 wrote: | I'm guessing you have some specialised skill and are | difficult to replace? For someone unskilled, that's a one way | ticket to never getting a shift again. | trhway wrote: | No, i just do my work, whatever it is, starting from summer | work in collective farm fields after 6th grade back in the | 1985, construction in 1987, Navy yards in 1988, | construction during University summers 90-92, and various | programming gigs starting 90. At any place, including very | good paying job in Western company in 1999 in Russia with | the crisis around, any attempts by the management to | arbitrarily tighten the screws - i'd visibly and | prominently challenge and object to it, and few times it | would be i'd really be ready to leave. The management would | always back down. We are all pretty much aware what things | are reasonable and what aren't, and taking unreasonable | position is what makes you already half-lost whatever side | you're on. | it_does_follow wrote: | I once lead a team through a massive layoff during the | pandemic, fought with leadership to save their jobs (and | succeeded), and focused on making sure their work was balanced | enough to keep them distracted from what was going on but not a | source of stress. My top priority was to ensure that they did | not suffer undue stress during the incredibly difficult period | of early pandemic coupled with layoffs, focused on making their | work as meaningful as possible for them. We still posted some | record revenue months. | | I was fired for this, ultimately because I was not aggressive | enough with the team. | | You get toxic managers like this in toxic companies because it | is the only way to not only get promoted but to survive. I | recognized early in the pandemic that I could either be the | person I wanted to be, the leader I wanted to be, or have a job | in 6 months. I chose the former, but don't blame people who are | forced to choose the latter. | | edit: I should clarify that I do mean _forced_ to choose the | latter in that last sentence. There is a difference between a | 30k /year worker being moved to a 45k/year manager role and | needing to keep that job to survive and a 200k/year software | engineer choosing to behave this way for a 250k/year job. | luckydata wrote: | I do blame them. Until we have stronger labor movement in | this country we'll be at the mercy of this stuff, no matter | how "special" or irreplaceable you think you are. | pg_1234 wrote: | This ... and as to blame ... at some point you have to | admit the managers are just being evil for the money. | [deleted] | MilnerRoute wrote: | Here's a URL for the quote. (It's from an article headlined "A | Homeless Amazon Worker Tried to Organize a Union. Then Amazon | Fired Him.") | | https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker... | to11mtm wrote: | I worked for a guy like that once. | | I was already under so much stress from work that I had part of | my intestines bind up for a week, the doctors couldn't figure | out what was wrong with me so they decided to give me | predinsone... I felt sick so I went home on a Saturday, after | 'only' hitting 50 hours for the week. My boss called to yell at | me and tell me to come back to work, the next thing I clearly | remember was being in a hospital. | | I still had to work for that POS for 2 years after that | happened. For a long time I blamed myself, until a year and | half later when my mother was within an inch of life in the | hospital and I wanted to leave early and see her, he said | "Didn't I already give you a day off for that?" | | As for what kind of person that is? Narccists. And they can be | very damaging to their employees if they aren't rooted out from | management quickly. | hutzlibu wrote: | "And they can be very damaging to their employees if they | aren't rooted out from management quickly." | | But they can be very useful to burn through people to get | shit done and raise profits short term. A timemachine would | be interesting, to compare different times and see whether | narcism is deep rooted in our genetics, or if it is our | culture that promotes them . | MaxBarraclough wrote: | A deliberate strategy of employee burnout and high turnover | isn't necessarily only viable in the short term, especially | if the work is menial such that there's little time | invested in onboarding. | biohax2015 wrote: | Narcissists make excellent executives but terrible | managers. | ashtonkem wrote: | I had a fairly similar physical reaction to overwork, | interestingly. Thankfully an ER tech took a bit of extra time | to ask me if my stress levels had changed recently. This led | to rapid re-evaluation of my life choices, and me quitting | shortly afterwards. | Cupertino95014 wrote: | AFAIC, there is almost no condition for which the right | treatment is "prednisone." If you want to get terrified, | search on "side effects of prednisone" | | The vet gave me that once for my dog's itchy paws. I refused | to give it to him. | kwantam wrote: | Are you a doctor? Are you a veterinarian? If no, how likely | do you believe it is that you are better informed than a | trained professional after a web search for side effects? | | Prednisone is on the WHO's list of essential medicines. It | a vital drug for, among other things, cases where immune | activity needs to be modified. The fact that it can be | dangerous when misused is not in any way evidence that it | should never be used. | | Put simply, your stance is anti-science. I hope that you | will reconsider it. Whether or not you do, I hope that no | one reading your comment puts any weight on your opinion, | which is not grounded in fact or knowledge. | twofornone wrote: | >how likely do you believe it is that you are better | informed than a trained professional after a web search | for side effects | | How much "training" do you think doctors get with respect | to the thousands of drugs that they may prescribe? | Doctors are almost all specialists, and read the same | side effects labels (or google them these days) that you | do. You are not required to rely exclusively on your | doctor's risk/benefit analysis for a given prescription. | Furthermore, as the commenter pointed out in his example, | often times doctors simply do not know what is causing a | problem and will throw drugs at it - a lot of medicine is | guesswork. | | >Prednisone is on the WHO's list of essential medicines | | Which says nothing about its side effect profile | | >The fact that it can be dangerous when misused is not in | any way evidence that it should never be used. | | Drugs have side effects even when not misused. | | >Put simply, your stance is anti-science. I hope that you | will reconsider it. Whether or not you do, I hope that no | one reading your comment puts any weight on your opinion, | which is not grounded in fact or knowledge. | | Not treating a doctor's word as gospel truth is hardly | "anti-science" - on the contrary, blind faith is anti- | science. And what is researching a drug's side effect | profile if not grounding oneself in "fact or knowledge"? | | Doctors make mistakes. Not proactively sanity checking | their treatments is irresponsible when you have the same | resources that they do. | ocdtrekkie wrote: | Pred is a pretty amazing drug, it has helped my kid through | an allergic reaction and my pets survive years past when | they would've otherwise expired. | | Try getting medical care for someone allergic to pred and | watch how confounded the doctors are how to proceed. | tylersmith wrote: | I avoided back surgery and regained the ability to stand | without pain after 2 prednisone epidurals. There certainly | were some unpleasant side effects, but I was warned about | the potential for them and they were far more mild than the | condition that was relieved. | keyanp wrote: | It's often used as a short term medication for aggressive | gastrointestinal inflammation: | https://www.massgeneral.org/children/inflammatory-bowel- | dise... | Animats wrote: | "Unprecedented wave of activism", right. Workers have been kept | down so long that nobody knows labor history any more.[1] | | [1] https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business- | history/februa... | thr0wawayf00 wrote: | Just like how most people think we always worked 40 hours per | week throughout human history. | stjohnswarts wrote: | well relative to the past 10 years not what happened many many | decades ago | [deleted] | qualifiedai wrote: | do not hire activists in the first place | idop wrote: | He wasn't an "activist" before joining Amazon. He was homeless. | Cort3z wrote: | The amount of popups and overlays on this webpage is out of | control to a degrees that I simply left before ever getting to | the content. | mef wrote: | https://archive.ph/GjnfJ | jtbayly wrote: | Thanks. Any idea why sometimes these links just put me on a | reCaptcha loop? It's not me failing the reCaptcha. I get | accepted as a human and then get the same "One more step" page | again. | LadyCailin wrote: | Ironic that a scraper bot doesn't want bots accessing its | site. | dundarious wrote: | Apple Private Relay always leads to a loop for me. Mozilla | VPN (presumably Mullvad as well) does not. | jtbayly wrote: | Thanks, that seems like the most likely, as I have it | turned on. | e4e78a06 wrote: | I've had these problems when I have uBlock Origin + a news | paywall bypass plugin enabled. I'm guessing something to do | with cookies being wiped or scripts being blocked is the | issue. | tobyjsullivan wrote: | It's almost certainly a broken implementation. | | I have no idea here but, as an example, I'd expect the | behaviour you describe if someone tried to mix Recaptcha V2 | and Recaptcha V3. They might get a score from V3 and, if that | score is low, they challenge with V2 as an "escape hatch" to | prove you're not a bot. But then they might have messed it up | and redirect you back to a V3 check which still gets a low | score. Cycle repeats. | | In fact, they may well be testing an upgrade from V2 to V3 | which could behave the same if they test both at once instead | of A/B test. | | This is pure speculation. Probably 100 other ways they can | mess it up. | kepler1 wrote: | Does anyone else find scant/zero information in this article | about what exactly the circumstances of this worker's case is? | | The story goes on and on about the general topic on other Amazon- | related labor recent news, but I find that the total information | about this specific case in this article is approximately 1 | sentence. | | What did the worker do, what did Amazon do? 0 information. Not a | lot of journalistic content for a "Bloomberg Equality" desk. | avs733 wrote: | two reasons... | | 1) It's a bloomberg article, their style is short and to the | point, their goal is the outcome. They would rather be first | and concise than thorough. | | 2) The bloomberg article is about the finding about the | complaint not the details of the complaint. | ARandomerDude wrote: | The details aren't important. You just need to know the | narrative: "Amazon = bad because capitalism = bad." | deltree7 wrote: | It's just another hit piece to stay in relevance. | UIUC_06 wrote: | A very long time ago, someone said something that's stuck with | me: | | Some companies are good to invest in. Some are good to be a | customer of. Some are good to work for. But very few companies | are all three. | | Amazon's definitely not the last of those three. | biohax2015 wrote: | Costco is all three! | kortilla wrote: | Not so much on the investment side. https://www.google.com/fi | nance/quote/COST:NASDAQ?comparison=... | tyingq wrote: | Apparently the activist is homeless: | https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon-worker... | | And _"[NLRB] will issue a complaint if the case does not settle"_ | sounds like some nice leverage to have. | worker767424 wrote: | I get that employees have the right to organize, but this guy | was recently out of prison, living in a shelter, and his last | job was a transitional job cleaning up trash by the freeway. | You have to understand that when you organize, you're painting | a target on your back. The guy just finished a prison sentence | for robbery. Shut up and keep your head down. Let the middle | class kids without police records do the organizing. Not saying | this is OK or right, but it's the reality of the situation. | TameAntelope wrote: | I'll even go a step further and say that if you've made a | number of objectively bad major decisions in your life, I | think it's worth spending a _long while_ reflecting on your | decision making process, rather than just keep taking swings | like this guy seems to be doing. | luma wrote: | What have all those other good decision makers done to | improve this man's lot? What exactly should he be waiting | for? | | Reasonable people acting reasonably is how we got to where | we are, and there are a lot of people who aren't happy with | the results. I'm sure you would like those people to remain | calm, but I don't know that it's wise to expect that they | will continue doing so forever. | TameAntelope wrote: | I don't want anyone to remain calm or wait, I've read MLK | too much to think that's a good idea, but I do I want | this specific convicted felon to reflect on his decision | making for a while before continuing to react as he does, | because he's clearly not getting the outcomes he wants | for himself. | tyingq wrote: | An alternative view is that a guy recently out of prison | still found Amazon's working conditions bad enough to | become an activist. | TameAntelope wrote: | I think he would have found something to be upset about | regardless of what he did. | worker767424 wrote: | It's really hard to say because the article limited it to | this: | | > During his second week at Amazon, Smith was approached | by workers involved in organizing the Amazon Labor Union. | Although Smith loved his job, he thought there were | things that could be improved. In particular, he said, he | was concerned about the warehouse's extremely rapid pace | of work and lack of breaks. | tyingq wrote: | The article I linked to has lots more detail and direct | quotes from Smith. | | https://www.nysfocus.com/2021/11/23/a-homeless-amazon- | worker... | worker767424 wrote: | Not many others from him on his issues with work | conditions (there were others from other people about | Amazon). He actually contradicts himself. This is him | describing alleged intimidation after he because active | in the union (emphasis added): | | > _Everyone else working around me was working at their | own pace_ and he was just on me sending me more carts to | sort and telling me to work faster | | One reason he gave for joining the union was "the | warehouse's extremely rapid pace of work." | decebalus1 wrote: | Yes, exactly, People need to know their place in society. | Who knows what would happen if we give everyone a voice and | allow all these freedoms to roam around. This guy should be | kissing Bezos's feet for giving him the OPPORTUNITY to | work. Tired of reading about all these 'bad major | decisions' people getting involved in activism. Please let | me know when the lacoste prep school bros organize, none of | this deplorables bullshit. | TameAntelope wrote: | Nowhere did I say _this_ was a major bad decision in his | life, I was, of course, referring to the robbery he was | convicted of... | givemeethekeys wrote: | Are you hoping that he'll read this and somehow see the light | or are you trying to paint the picture that he has fewer | rights than someone without a beat up past? | worker767424 wrote: | He has the same rights on paper, but that's not how it | works. Say "it's not fair" all you want, but if you screw | over society, society isn't going to trust you the same way | as someone with a clear record, and you're going to have to | prove yourself. I obviously know he's not going to read | this, but he doesn't strike me as a reliable source of | information either, so I'm just not too concerned with what | happened. | jkestner wrote: | Think he did more than say "It's not fair." The law was | on his side and he had it enforced. May we all be so | brave. | aspenmayer wrote: | Do these complaints have any kind of teeth? I feel bad for the | workers, especially the one mentioned. It's of little comfort | to a homeless person to have their complaints upheld if it | doesn't result in a change in their material circumstances. | tyingq wrote: | They can force compliance with an order, but no power for | punitive awards, fines, etc. So basically they can force | giving the job back with back pay. | | If I were this particular worker, knowing the NLRB will force | at least that, I would ask for something much higher to | settle. Though I suppose if you're homeless, you may not have | that option to wait. | kadoban wrote: | They have some teeth, yeah. Not enough that Amazon won't do | similar things again though, I'm sure. | | Back pay and reinstatement are possible outcomes (in general | for complaints, tbh I have no idea for this one), so it could | have a real effect on the wronged. | pandemicsoul wrote: | It always amazes me, in situations like this, that people just | end up suffering even though the machine is "working on their | behalf." Like, I used to have this idea - I have no idea where | it came from - that if a crime happened to you, the government | would step in and help you. Like, if your family member is | murdered in your home, they'd come in and clean it up and help | you fix the door since you'll be inconsolable. Or, if you get | fired for something like this that the government would help | you get back on your feet and make sure you have a place to | stay and pay your bills. How utterly childish and naive that | was. | | This country has no safety net and that's terrifying. | registeredcorn wrote: | selestify wrote: | I grew up with that sort of trust in authority too. Somewhere | along the line -- I'm not sure exactly where -- that trust | evaporated. | ncallaway wrote: | > How utterly childish and naive that was. | | It's not childish. It's a totally reasonable expectation of | how the world should work. Don't pass that off as childish, | instead ask why the government is failing to meet its most | basic obligations. | | It's only naive because the government has totally failed the | people. There's no reason (other than a system designed to | protect the interests of the wealthy instead of the needy) | that it works this way. We should forge a world where such | expectations aren't naive. | [deleted] | codewithcheese wrote: | In some countries there is victim of crime compensation. I | don't know if it's timely enough to stop one becoming | homeless. | ErikVandeWater wrote: | > This country has no safety net and that's terrifying. | | No safety net whatsoever? | macintux wrote: | A thin one with gaping holes and a pile of corpses beneath | it. | nightski wrote: | Many people have a pretty strong safety net in their family | and friends. I've been there for family members in tough | spots and take a lot of comfort in knowing my immediate | family would be there for me if I was in dire straights. | | It is terrifying and unfortunate for those who do not have | that luxury though, and strong local communities can help | there. We need to do a more. But I think in all cases where I | have the option I'd prefer to rely on those close to me than | the government. | | But it also emphasizes how much impact one can have just | helping those in need directly instead of complaining about | how crappy the government is. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-22 23:00 UTC)