Amazon workers unionize

www.cnbc.com...

Employees at an Amazon warehouse on New York’s Staten Island voted Friday to join a union, a groundbreaking move for organized labor and a stinging defeat for the e-commerce giant, which has aggressively fought unionization efforts at the company.

Good for them. Wonder how this will roll down to the consumer?
I think unions had their place in the early days, then after a while I felt unions were just protecting
Bad workers. Now I think a lot of these companies, Amazon specifically have taken advantage of too many workers.
Just the fact that factory workers have died from overwork.

I guess we will see how this pans out.

a reply to: JAGStorm
I'll tell you how it will pan out. Just like in the UK with the sacking of all the crews of P and O s ferries. Amazon will just sack all the workers because there's a few thousand illegal immigrants that will do the jobs for peanuts. Oh, and the illegal immigrants will not unionise.

Unions are a double-edged sword. It's sad that we need such a corrupt organization that profits off our blood, sweat and tears to protect us from companies that profit off of our blood, sweat and tears.

The end result will be higher prices feeding the already out of control inflation machine.

Just more 'good cop/bad cop' squeezing us in the middle. The only true winners will be Big Business and Unions.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I wouldn't put it above Amazon to just shut that facility down. Amazon is already paying above market wages and benefits. Yes, they can work you hard but sometimes that is the requirement if you want to make good money.

If anything, that facility will find itself at ground zero for being fully automated. Amazon already has cashierless stores and the tech is there for robots to sort and pack at a distribution center.

My issue with unions is they breed mediocrity. The bring everyone down to the worst performer instead of getting rid of the dead weight to improve performance.

If you don't like working some where, find a new job. No one forces you to work at Amazon. As rapper BIG said, "Don't be mad... UPS is hiring"

Today - Amazon hiring NYPD to harass, intimidate & arrest pro-union workers
Cheers

originally posted by: JAGStorm

Good for them. Wonder how this will roll down to the consumer?
I think unions had their place in the early days, then after a while I felt unions were just protecting
Bad workers. Now I think a lot of these companies, Amazon specifically have taken advantage of too many workers.
Just the fact that factory workers have died from overwork.

I guess we will see how this pans out.

Most unions are not very useful today and they just pull money from workings with providing little need or support. My brother-in-law was big in a Union back in the 70s and 80s and he was making about 150k back then living large, but I do not know what he provided the workers to justify his pay.

We also need to remember you literally can't work in the East without being part of a Union. A friend of mine works outside of the Unions under the table doing remodeling construction. He tells me he charges about 40% of what it would cost for a Union worker to do the same job with the requirement to provide top quality too.

My company fights unions by providing the workers with what they need. I think about 10 years ago the unions push hard to come in, but were voted down. Since I'm management I could not see what they offered but my workers had zero issues with turning them down as they really didn't offer anything outside of what they actually had. Because of all that I did attend a course at Boeing explaining what we can and can not do as management. A part of the course went into what Unions do, why they do it, and how it ends up being bad for both the workers and the company. As example, if you have both union and non-union workers the company is required to do XYZ with union workers while they can pay non-union workers more, give them more time off, extra benefits etc as Boeing does and can do, but with a Union Boeing can't say hey we want to give more benefits then what they have...It all needs to go to arbitration and just ends up being dropped because the union will always want more.

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
Today - Amazon hiring NYPD to harass, intimidate & arrest pro-union workers
Cheers

Lots of upvotes and if you read the comments the title doesn't match what actually happened.

originally posted by: Edumakated
My issue with unions is they breed mediocrity. The bring everyone down to the worst performer instead of getting rid of the dead weight to improve performance.

If you don't like working some where, find a new job. No one forces you to work at Amazon. As rapper BIG said, "Don't be mad... UPS is hiring"

In this day and age companies can not stay successful with dead meat hanging on. There are people who should be fired but can not be. Even in non-union, it can be damn hard to fire someone who sucks, but in Unions, it is almost impossible. I wish our schools were not unionized.

a reply to: JAGStorm

good news indeed.

a reply to: Xtrozero

Unions keep star employees from shining because it makes all the slackers look bad. Only in a free labor market without a union can someone excel and rise on their own merits.

Companies most certainly can take advantage of people but the issue isn't so much unionizing but the employees just saying they expect better wages and bennies or they will quit. Corporate / professional firms who are competing for top talent understand this which is why those employees can demand certain wages and bennies without unionizing.

For unskilled work, the issue is that there is an abundant supply of workers so there is little leverage. However, that doesn't stop star employees from rising through the ranks.

I couldn't tell you the first thing about a union, other than how to spell it and that it was the name of my elementary school.

originally posted by: LSU2018
I couldn't tell you the first thing about a union, other than how to spell it and that it was the name of my elementary school.

You should read up and watch some movies, it is super super interesting.

Like I said, I’m very torn on the issue, but if there were ever a place to have one it would be Amazon.
Walmart squashed any union talks successfully.

a reply to: Xtrozero

In this day and age companies can not stay successful with dead meat hanging on. There are people who should be fired but can not be. Even in non-union, it can be damn hard to fire someone who suc

Our schools are unionized but CAN’T picket, which is funny because for teachers that is really their only power, just look at Illinois, ha!

originally posted by: nugget1
Unions are a double-edged sword. It's sad that we need such a corrupt organization that profits off our blood, sweat and tears to protect us from companies that profit off of our blood, sweat and tears.

We needed them back in the 1920s, today nope. As to companies making a profit off our blood, sweat, and tears. Whatever happened to I'll pay you a day wage for a day of work? People need to understand the value of what a job is to understand what the pay will be to do it. There is a reason a big mac meal is over 10 bucks in Seattle and 6.50 in Texas.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Yes, "good for them..." let's all show how economically unlearned and ideologically idiotic we are by celebrating something that just drives up prices for us while putting the additional money into the pockets of a handful of union chiefs who are paid handsomely to sweet talk the employees still taking it up the ass and brainwash them into believing this time is different because the ass raping is coming from their "union brothers."

You're smarter than this, JAG.

originally posted by: JAGStorm

Our schools are unionized but CAN’T picket, which is funny because for teachers that is really their only power, just look at Illinois, ha!

Don't get me started about Illinois...lol

Teachers do not get paid enough period, but there are a lot of useless people in the system. They could cut out all the useless people, get rid of the bad teachers and double their salary, and still have more money in the end. There is a reason why charter schools can pay their teachers double, have much lower student-to-teacher ratios, better food, and basically better everything for the same cost that is paid for the student in the public schools.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

You're smarter than this, JAG.

I dislike condescending talk like that. If you are so smart what is the answer? Too many people are getting taken advantage of. I see it so much, and a lot of times it’s young people. We need to get away from the thought that all young people have to do “their time” in food service, customer service, or warehousing while basically being abused.
Yes I do know the abuses of the union chiefs had gone on too long (and still goes on for some places). I hope, this new generations corrects that too. We’ll see.

I also know that robots/AI will take these jobs before we know it, but for right now what?

Also want to add, we need to get away from “oh we did that before and it did’t work so we can’t try again” mentality.
Healthcare is a perfect example. Just doing nothing isn’t working either.

Excellent reply.

Especially your first paragraph. Dead on.

a reply to: nugget1

a reply to: Xtrozero

Don't get me started about Illinois...lol

My kids started out in Illinois schools, I was in for the shock of my life when we moved to Florida.
Better teachers, Better Books, better buildings, better food, better activists, Pretty much better 100% of Everything.
The schools in Illinois are really behind and the people don’t even realize it.