[HN Gopher] Amazon's plan to "neutralize" unions with ex-inmates... ___________________________________________________________________ Amazon's plan to "neutralize" unions with ex-inmates and "vulnerable students" Author : hownottowrite Score : 147 points Date : 2022-07-31 19:45 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.vox.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.vox.com) | themitigating wrote: | This headlines made me think (thought unlikely) that Amazon is | hiring ex-cons and dropouts to beat the shit out of union | organizers. | zugi wrote: | I read the article expecting to see terrible actions by Amazon | fighting the union. | | Instead the article was about the Teamsters union convincing | local governments to block Amazon from opening buildings, and | Amazon "fighting back" by increasing their hiring of needy ex- | cons and minorities from local colleges, ending their marijuana | drug tests, and otherwise working to ingratiate themselves with | their comminities. | | The Teamsters don't come out looking like the good guys... | dotopotoro wrote: | They seem to be very positive influence on amzn | zugi wrote: | Nice, that's a good way to look at it! | mechanical_bear wrote: | > The Teamsters don't come out looking like the good guys... | | This is often the case. | dahdum wrote: | Anyone hiring ex-inmates in large numbers is doing society a | great benefit, whether it's altruism, PR, or both hardly matters | to me. It's not easy managing that cohort and few businesses are | even willing to try. Many of those that are have worse work | conditions. | | I'm 100% on board for tax cuts or subsidies for businesses who | keep the formerly incarcerated employed. | vintermann wrote: | Altruism and PR aren't the only options. If the explanation is | "they'll be less likely to dare to ask for better treatment" | then I think that's a problem. | [deleted] | boomboomsubban wrote: | The memo doesn't seem to suggest hiring the formerly | incarcerated, it only mentions creating partnerships with | organizations that work for the formerly incarcerated. | | It doesn't say what that partnership would entail, but | something like donating to an outreach program for the formerly | incarcerated doesn't deserve tax breaks. | bcrosby95 wrote: | I think you missed this part: | | > "....By creating a pipeline of workers who would | immediately benefit from our benefits compared to other peers | in the region, we are creating spokespeople that can improve | our reputation, while helping our communities most | vulnerable." | [deleted] | kcplate wrote: | So apparently "neutralize" is the big bad trigger word here | despite this quote? | | > Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien told Recode in July | that his union is intent on " _disrupting_ [Amazon's] network | until they get to a point where they _surrender_ | zugi wrote: | hospadar wrote: | Do you honestly believe that Jeff Bezos, one of the | wealthiest people on the planet, who just shot himself into | space on a private rocket, is worried about his personal | safety because of the president of the teamsters? | zugi wrote: | Uh, no I do not, it just seemed like a relevant movie | reference... | mrxd wrote: | I'm a huge supporters of unions, but Amazon has been very open | about their opposition to unions. The fundamental argument for | unions is that companies serve shareholders at the expense of | workers. Opposing unions is some kind of shocking corporate | malfeasance, it's just the nature of capitalism. | baskethead wrote: | Purposefully manipulative headlines like this are why I don't | trust most articles from sources like vox. | | The headline is used in a way to make it seem like Amazon is | targeting students that are vulnerable to them, meanwhile Amazon | is targeting those that would benefit the most in society, | because they are most vulnerable to economic issues, like ex- | inmates and students. Vox is doing its best to manipulate their | words to make things look as bad as possible. | | I wish there were a feature where I could automatically not see | articles from certain content providers because they are so | skewed and biased. | 300bps wrote: | An ad that locked the browser on my iPhone telling me I won't | various prizes lowered my trust of Vox as well. | stevenjgarner wrote: | Next time you're at a union meeting, ask them about any boxes | they own at sports stadiums. Ask if you as a paid union member | can use the box that you are paying for with your dues. | jjeaff wrote: | While I don't like things like luxury boxes for the big wigs, a | union exec would have the same justification as any business | exec would. In fact, a union exec might have even more | justification as I can imagine nearly their entire job is | schmoozing executives and politicians. | stevenjgarner wrote: | An even better opportunity for the executives and politicians | being schmoozed to meet a real dues-paying union worker. | bpodgursky wrote: | You could make the same argument about bags of coke and | keeping hookers on retainer. | | At a point you need to draw the line admit what is simply | corruption. | therouwboat wrote: | Not american, but our union owns summer cottages that members | can use. Otherwise unions are really simple, they get % of my | pay, so more I make, more they make and its other way around | with my job, less I make, more they make. | michaelchisari wrote: | Are you saying this as an argument against unions? Or as an | argument for better, more democratic unions? | hospadar wrote: | While you're at it ask your corporate boss if you can use his | private jet since it is your labor making him wealthy after | all. I'm sure he'll be very generous. | | I agree that powerful people aren't great but it seems | ridiculous to imagine that union bosses are the worst | offenders. | JamesBarney wrote: | This article is both too cynical and yet not cynical enough. | | Of course Amazon is doing good not out of the goodness of it's | heart but for good PR. This is true of literally every large | corporation. | | But that doesn't mean the good they do isn't good. | | The way they are "neutralizing" them with ex inmates and | vulnerable students is they're making a special effort to hire | ex-inmates and underprivileged students. | [deleted] | Cyberdog wrote: | On a parallel Earth, Vox has published an article praising | Amazon to the high heavens for hiring felons and troubled | youth. | | Nobody wants to hire ex-convicts, yet when they have nothing to | lose (like a decent job) they're at far greater risk for | recidivism. It's a bummer for the union people, I suppose, but | as someone greatly concerned with how our society shows no | shame in blatant classism with regards to ex-cons, I really | wish Amazon the best with this program and hope it quickly | spreads to other companies as well. That their reasons for | doing so are not entirely altruistic just doesn't worry me in | this particular case. | huetius wrote: | I totally agree with you about our society's mistreatment of | people who have paid their debts, but I'm not sure I like | what Amazon is doing here. It smacks of using people: | treating them like props in order to secure private gain. | civilized wrote: | > It smacks of using people | | Work is fundamentally transactional. Those for whom it is | more than that are lucky. | | > treating them like props in order to secure private gain | | I worry about moralizing on behalf of the marginalized. | They should be asked whether they'd prefer the option to | have the work. | Cyberdog wrote: | Yes, well, such is the case with the Dave Thomas | Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, Product RED... Any good | they do is all with the bottom line in mind. | | Meanwhile, the felon who gets a $15+/hour gig in an Amazon | warehouse during the hardest time in their life, when no | other employer in town will give them the time of day and | the urges to fall back into those bad habits are creeping | in, is probably not going to care much about being "used." | guipsp wrote: | (because they can pay them less) | CSMastermind wrote: | I really dislike sensationalized headlines like this. A more | accurate one might say: | | > Amazon's plan to counter pressure from the Teamsters Union | focuses on investing in non-profits. | | For those who didn't read the article: | | A leaked Amazon memo shows that the Teamsters Union is | effectively putting pressure on Amazon by convincing its members | to pressure politicians into not granting Amazon tax breaks, land | grants, etc. | | Amazon is worried that this represents a real threat to expansion | as having local politicians turn against them will almost | certainly mean their competitors like UPS (who is friendly with | the Teamsters) will outcompete them. | | So, Amazon is going to invest in local charities like those for | ex-convicts and low-income students. This has two purposes: | | 1. Give politicians an excuse to give Amazon tax breaks (look at | what they invest in the community). | | 2. Build positive sentiment with local members who will talk to | politicians on Amazon's behalf. They'll be especially motivated | to if Amazon threatens to pull funding from their non-profits. | c3534l wrote: | Sensationalized? This is disinformation. | stonogo wrote: | "Disinformation" that uses the exact phrasing from the Amazon | document? | marginalia_nu wrote: | You can absolutely misrepresent what someone is saying by | using quotes out of context. | mechanical_bear wrote: | Except it is not. | dave_sullivan wrote: | They will spend money on literally anything else except wage | increases. | wahern wrote: | Just to play Devil's Advocate: a company can cut donations or | most other expenditures anytime it wants. An increase in | wages is effectively a permanent commitment, and the only way | to reduce wage expenditures is to cut the workforce. This is | why companies tend to prefer bonuses, etc, rather than pay | bumps, even for individual employees. | echelon wrote: | Companies also want to retain the ability to fire at will, | with simple HR processes, and to reward based on | performance instead of seniority. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | > and to reward based on performance instead of seniority | | Or reward based on bootlicking, office politics and | sexual favours. If you think companies are efficient and | promote based on merit, I have a casting couch to sell | you. | charcircuit wrote: | Just a few months ago Amazon raised the maximum base salary | from $160k to $350k | missedthecue wrote: | They were the first to $15, literally leading a nationwide | wage increase for low skill labor, and now they pay closer to | $18 by me. For people trying to hate Amazon at any cost, the | goalposts keep shifting. If Amazon announced $20 minimum | tomorrow, there is no doubt in my mind that people would | still be griping. | | And even when people concede that Amazon pays industry | leading wages, it's "whatabout" the urine bottles as if the | heavily unionized UPS drivers don't also do this. | | https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/what-do-you- | do-w... | | https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine- | bottles.36... | | https://www.browncafe.com/community/threads/urine-bottles- | in... | | Turns out public bathrooms aren't always available around | suburbia, and leaving a truck unattended is a bad idea. I'm | not trying to lick boots here or anything, but the constant | shitting on Amazon's non-tech business gets really | uninteresting. As if it's all generated by a GPT-3 bot. | pwdisswordfish0 wrote: | > They were the first to $15[...] now they pay closer to | $18 by me | | This is bullshit. | | I'm sure there's some Hollywood accounting justification | for this claim, but over 10 years ago close to $18/hr is | what you could expect to make as associate working in the | distribution center of another big corporate behemoth: | Walmart. We're talking low-skill grindwork smack dab in the | post-economic collapse, and that $18/hr figure does not | account for the "veteran" workers on the receiving end of | the more-or-less guaranteed annual pay bumps that come with | just continuing to work there (making $20+/hr). Again, not | now in the current post-COVID era (because otherwise who | cares), but over 10 years ago. | | It blew me away when a few years ago I learned that Amazon | was only paying something like $13. | | So Amazon is $15? Who cares. Almost every fast food place | around is paying close to that now, I'm told. $15 is so low | that _no one_ was getting paid that low at the Walmart DC | that I 'm familiar with, which (again, since it bears | repeating) was _over 10 years ago_. | hkt wrote: | Relating to those pay bumps: Amazon has targets for staff | turnover, which will potentially purge anyone who gets | incremental pay increases even if they start doing that | (which AIUI they don't really) | TaylorAlexander wrote: | If the workers want unions... why not just let them have | unions? Amazon is hell bent on suppressing worker power. | Acting like Amazon isn't doing anything wrong here is | wishful thinking. We can keep pretending like the needs of | the workers are immaterial to the functioning of society or | we can let workers have some modicum of control over their | workplace conditions. But right now Amazon is trying to | crush workers rights and that's deplorable even if you're | tired of hearing about it. | hwers wrote: | That's because $20 is still humiliatingly low for the | workload | leetcrew wrote: | $20/hr is increasingly difficult to live on in higher COL | areas of the US, but annualized at 40 hours per week, | it's pretty close to the US median individual income. a | household with two adults making that much would be well | above the median household income. "humiliatingly low" is | an exaggeration. | bequanna wrote: | They do actually require that you work, yes. | | There are plenty of lower paid jobs for those only | interested in being a chair filler. | | But the pay is quite good for the required skillset. | rr808 wrote: | I'm not sure which planet you are on, but warehouse | workers earn way less than $20/hr in most of the US, | Europe or anywhere else. | Retric wrote: | Many warehouses pay well over 20$/hour and others | significantly less. What's rarely mentioned is while | Amazon's compensation is roughly in line with industry | norms, the workload is however much worse. | kolbe wrote: | Care to give some support for this intangible and | unverifiable complaint? | colinmhayes wrote: | Just take a look at amazon warehouse worker turnover | rate. No other company in the industry comes anywhere | close. Amazon's strategy is to gamify work and force the | workers to put the pedal to the metal until they burn out | and quit. | pwdisswordfish0 wrote: | > No other company in the industry comes anywhere close. | | Arguably not the same industry (but devastatingly | adjacent): have a look at FedEx warehouses. Recently as | low as $13.xx/hr, same sort of grueling work, plus the | privilege of not knowing whether you'll need to show up | at 4:00 AM or 7:00 AM. You don't get to know until the | night before, when you call a phone number around 8 or 9 | to listen to a recorded message that will tell you. And | you have no idea how long you'll be working, either | (except that it won't be 8 hours). 5-6 hours is possible. | ~3 hours is probable. So you'll need to work 6 or 7 days | just for the chance that you might get close to 30 hours. | Ridiculously high turnover, as expected. | gruez wrote: | >Just take a look at amazon warehouse worker turnover | rate. No other company in the industry comes anywhere | close. | | But all that says is "people don't want to work on | amazon". It doesn't say why they don't want to work | there. The parent post made a specific claim (ie. "the | workload is however much worse"), which is _consistent_ | with worse working conditions, but not proof of it. | Retric wrote: | Just because you don't like a statement doesn't mean it's | unverifiable, objectively: | | Average Warehouse Worker Hourly Pay "Avg. Base Hourly | Rate (USD)" $14.99/ hour and $19.57 is top 10%. https://w | ww.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Warehouse_Worker/Ho... | | As to the job sucking, "Amazon warehouse workers suffer | serious injuries at twice the rate of rivals, study | finds" https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/study-amazon- | workers-suffer-... | rxhernandez wrote: | Just because warehouse owners have the leverage to make | it impossible to demand more doesn't make it any less | humiliating. | CamperBob2 wrote: | Well, clearly their mistake was failing to consult hwers | on Hacker News when evaluating the market for warehouse | labor. | SoftTalker wrote: | > "whatabout" the urine bottles as if the heavily unionized | UPS drivers don't also do this. | | Anecdotal I guess, but every time I see either an Amazon or | UPS driver at my house they seem pretty relaxed. They pull | into the drive, walk to the door with the package, and walk | back to the truck. They don't seem rushed. Maybe they pee | in a bottle in their truck but based on my observations | that's probably just the easiest thing for them to do, at | least for the males. | | When I delivered pizza in the late 1980s I _ran_ back and | forth from my car to the customer 's door. 30 seconds saved | could mean being ahead of the next driver getting back to | the store, where it was FIFO. | Retric wrote: | Amazon is far from the first company bumping to 15$/hour. | Even when they finally joined the 15$ club they where still | underpaying people at the time as shown by their retention | statistics. | | That's the thing about free markets, workers get to say no. | They can trade lower pay for a vastly less crappy job, or | get better treatment for similar pay elsewhere etc. | parineum wrote: | > as shown by their retention statistics. | | >That's the thing about free markets, workers get to say | no. | | I like how these sentences are consecutive. | aldebran wrote: | That's because the higher pay comes at the cost of peeing | in bottles aka losing human dignity. | | It feels like there's no shortage of people out to defend | Amazon either. | shepherdjerred wrote: | If someone is willing to sell their dignity (which I | guess is now defined by whether or not you urinate in a | bottle) then why should we stop them? | | We're not talking about safety or child labor where | there's a moral duty to put up guard rails. | rtpg wrote: | Because what happens is every single company will start | doing this in practice. Not to mention that overworking | people to the point that they do not believe they can | even take a real rest break is a safety issue. | edmcnulty101 wrote: | Does any job have dignity anymore? | | I'm a white guy on a team of a all Indian developers and | I spend half of my time kissing butt to fit in, just so I | can get the basic information I need to do my job. | | Before that I was a truck driver and peed in a bottle and | that actually had more dignity then kissing butt all day. | | Single moms useing only fans to keep paying these | skyrocketing rents. | | They literally made half the work force submit to | experimental vaccines or get fired. | | This is 2022 America. | | There's no such thing as work place dignity in the | majority of jobs anymore. | rowanG077 wrote: | Did you read the comment? It claimed that amazon is not | the outlier here. | jacksnipe wrote: | The goalposts are "good working conditions". You can track | this with retention, which is notably terrible at Amazon. | suby wrote: | I'm sure people would still be griping, but nothing is | static. The cost of everything keeps increasing and | honestly, depending on where you live even at 20 dollars an | hour it will be hard to make ends meet. | | There will always be a struggle between labor and employer | where each will seek to maximize their share, it's the | system we have set up. I really don't think people should | be faulted for pushing for more when it's literally a | companies goal to pay people as little as is functionally | possible. | | Amazon is the target because they are the largest. If you | increase the wage Amazon pays, you increase the wage their | competitors pay. | oarsinsync wrote: | > when it's literally a companies goal to pay people as | little as is functionally possible | | The meme that "fiduciary duty" means "maximise revenue at | all costs" needs to die. This is a falsehood that has | been debunked repeatedly. | colinmhayes wrote: | The only point of a company is to maximize shareholder | value. You're right, that doesn't always mean "maximize | revenue at all costs." It usually does though, because | especially as a growth company that's what shareholders | want. Obviously there are competing priorities, but | overall most shareholders want to maximize discounted | profit, and all their priorities reflect how that should | be done. | onethought wrote: | That's not true though. The shareholders are people so | what they want are as varied as what people want. | | Does Elon want SpaceX to be super profitable or does he | want to make life multi planetary? (They aren't mutually | exclusive, but it's weird to think that he is just trying | to make as much profit as possible). | Lich wrote: | > but it's weird to think that he is just trying to make | as much profit as possible | | Why is it weird to think that? | Gibbon1 wrote: | One can also consider that the state is also a party | because they license and privilege corporations and | stockholders. | suby wrote: | Your two sentences in this thread is hardly debunking | anything. What is Amazon maximizing if not profit? It | certainly is not employee share of revenue or employee | well being. | kelseyfrog wrote: | Corporations are allowed to exist to create a positive | net good. ie: the social contract works so long as we can | plausibly reason that they, you know, actually benefit | people more than they harm. Maximizing profit is a lie | told to children for reasons I won't get into, but when | it displaces the social contract, the end result is a | justification of all sorts of socially pathological | behavior, this included. | arrosenberg wrote: | Everything you just said stopped being true in the 70s | and 80s. Yes, B-corps are a thing, but the laws as | currently constructed encourage profit extraction above | nearly everything else. | kelseyfrog wrote: | That would be true if people believed economists like | Milton Friedman created reality instead of what was | really much more mundane. Those who do so are attributing | supernatural powers to a mere mortal. | pjmorris wrote: | Corporations have no fiduciary duty to produce a profit. | Thinking that they do has been attributed to Milton | Friedman's 1971 NY editorial [0], but some argue that the | notion can't be pinned on him [1] It's more accurate to | say that fiduciary responsibilities are to ensure the | corporation doesn't violate the law and that the firm | doesn't go out of business [2]. | | [0] 'The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase | Its Profits', Friedman | | [1] https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi | ?articl... | | [2] https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth- | Shareholders-C... | macintux wrote: | The point is that there's no law that says companies must | maximize profit at the expense of everything else. The | fiduciary duty is to be responsible with shareholder's | money, not to maximize return on investment. | verall wrote: | It doesn't matter if it is the law or not if Amazon is | made up of a large group of managers with competing | interests that all boil to maximizing profit in order to | meet their individual key goals. The GP said nothing | about it being the law, simply that it is how Amazon, as | a giant megacorporation, acts in practice. | otikik wrote: | It does matter because assuming it as a matter-of-fact | prevents discussing or even conceiving alternatives. It | prevents you from asking: What _should_ the companies | fiduciary duty be? (Perhaps respecting the law and not | busting unions?) | vorpalhex wrote: | > The cost of everything keeps increasing and honestly, | depending on where you live even at 20 dollars an hour it | will be hard to make ends meet. | | And if you bump everyone to $20, things will get more | expensive and then you'll have to bump them to $22, and | then everything will get more expensive so you'll... | HarryHirsch wrote: | A wage-price spiral would be preferable to the asset | inflation that two decades of zero-interest policy have | brought us. | 300bps wrote: | I think you've just invented the Wage-Price Spiral. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage-price_spiral | chownie wrote: | Except that's not at all true. Historic raises in the | minimum wage did not cause an inflationary response in | goods nor currency. | gruez wrote: | >Historic raises in the minimum wage did not cause an | inflationary response in goods nor currency. | | The "historic raises in the minimum wage" were also very | conservative and decried by proponents of | $15/$20/whatever minimum wage as being too low. A one | time pay bump won't cause serious issues, but giving in | to ever increasing demands for minimum wage (ie. $15 last | year, $20 this year, $25 the year after) will. | XorNot wrote: | Minimum wage _should_ be going up all the time to keep it | inline with inflation. That 's the point of minimum wage. | | Minimum wage used to ride regularly, then since _2005_ | has remained constant while in real terms reducing by | about 40% | | [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1065466/real- | nominal-val... | snewman wrote: | This is so exaggerated as to be silly. The cost of | "things" has many components, and only a small fraction | of them trace back to the hourly wage of low-paid | domestic workers. Increasing low-end wages by 10% does | not result in 10% additional inflation. | cycomanic wrote: | Considering that at the same time that inflation has been | at the highest in years, corporate profits have been the | highest ever. Maybe those two are much more related than | wage and inflation? | WheatM wrote: | [deleted] | baskethead wrote: | Most people that work for Amazon in the warehouse like | working there. All you're hearing are from the union plants | that are coordinating with media that both want to see Amazon | fail. Meanwhile the fact that unions are having such a hard | time gaining traction show that most of the members feel like | they don't need it. The idea that you can intimidate hundreds | of thousands of workers across the US is ludicrous. | nvrspyx wrote: | > Most people that work for Amazon in the warehouse like | working there. | | Isn't the retention rate at Amazon warehouses abysmal? | colinmhayes wrote: | Because everyone else quits after a month? | qbasic_forever wrote: | Could it not also be that unions are having a hard time | gaining traction because Amazon is taking illegal anti- | union measures in their warehouses? The NLRB gave merit to | complaints of illegal activities like threatening workers | who were voting to unionize: | https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdejj/amazon-repeatedly- | vio... | dionidium wrote: | Obviously, companies don't want to spend more on labor than | they have to. But I doubt that's any company's major concern | with unions. The issue, as I see it, is the lack of | flexibility once unions take hold. Now you have a large | democratic body with a lot of control over hiring and firing | and with undue input about who in the company does what and | according to which rules, which means, ultimately, over the | company's ability to address novel challenges. | | Just to take one silly example, when I worked at the phone | company we weren't allowed to move our phones ourselves any | time we moved desks. That was a task that _by contract_ had | to be performed by a union lineman. So a guy would show up, | eventually, and unplug your phone from one desk and then plug | it into another. | | That kind of nonsense was in place _all throughout_ the | company. All kinds of ridiculous details were written down | and enforced. The phone company barely even tries to be | competitive, so whatever, I guess. You probably pay for that | in your cellphone bill, but it 's not the end of the world. | | But if you're actually trying to be nimble and efficient, | then that kind of stuff makes it a lot harder. | shepherdjerred wrote: | This is very interesting. I've heard that warehouses have | poor conditions, but not poor pay. | | Anecdotally a friend of mine said that the warehouses pay | very well, especially in smaller towns where there are less | opportunities for young people who need short term work or | flexible working hours. | | Do competing warehouses pay better? | verisimi wrote: | Hey, I gave to a charity. Why don't local politicians give me | tax breaks?!? | | Honestly, this sort of idea is such an anathema to the idea of | fairness, and an indictment of politics. | | Be a big enough company, and then you can effectively bribe | politicians into giving you money from local tax payers that | you can then use to destroy those same local businesses and | communities. Genius. | chrisseaton wrote: | > Hey, I gave to a charity. Why don't local politicians give | me tax breaks?!? | | Aren't charitable donations tax deductible? | verisimi wrote: | I don't think that amazon is doing that. Nor Elon. | | They have offshore tax operations AND demand special | treatment, subsidies or tax breaks for deigning to operate | in some area. | pera wrote: | Why do you consider the headline sensationalist? They are using | the same language used in their memo: | | > _provide political cover for local policymakers, neutralize | organized labors' attempts to grow their coalition of third- | party validators and spokespeople [...]_ | [deleted] | aldebran wrote: | I disagree that it's sensationalized. The intentions do seem to | work towards neutralizing. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Tax breaks and land grants are giving Amazon a massive | advantage over all local businesses. | | Even if you are against labour right and purely pro-business, | how is a local shop suppose to complete? You are just | destroying you local businesses in favour of a multinational | that pays almost no taxes. I do not understand why this | practice is allowed. | qbasic_forever wrote: | Quotation marks implies they are directly quoting from the | leaked memo, i.e. not a sensationalized headline. | luckylion wrote: | That's not how quoting works. You can't just quote one word | and then put something else behind it. There's a difference | between "neutralizing unions" and "neutralizing labor's | attempt to ..." | | It's like the difference between "we need to kill him" and | "we need to kill his attempt to pass a law that would..." | pera wrote: | > _There 's a difference between "neutralizing unions" and | "neutralizing labor's attempt to ..."_ | | The term _neutralize_ as used here (i.e. "to counteract | the activity or effect of : make ineffective", Merriam- | Webster dictionary) actually make both sentences nearly | identical. | [deleted] | qbasic_forever wrote: | "labor" as a noun is a synonym for union ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-31 23:00 UTC)