5,800 Workers Voting to Unionize Their Amazon Facility

[Shadowferal]

Rubio backs Amazon workers' union efforts
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Say what you will on how he phrases his support, it's still...well, support.

[unfilteredJW]

It's called Civil Disobedience.

You could see example of that in US when local police refused to cooperate with Trump's ICE.

It’s almost like the police are a part of some organization that protects their rights as workers.

Fucking clown shoes.

[Milchshake]

Rubio backs Amazon workers' union efforts
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Say what you will on how he phrases his support, it's still...well, support.

Is it really support?

He lost me at "The Silicon Valley titan ...". Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations on the pages of theHill.com

His seat is up in 2022. So handing him participation trophies is the opposite of what progressive should be doing.

[Shadowferal]

Is it really support?

Well, it's more anti-Amazon than anything.
However if he's on my side of the fence cheering unionization I'll clap him on the back; "Welcome to the proletariat!"

[Felya]

Since when is being part of a union a quality for being able to exert civil disobedience?

The fact that the cops were not fired and continued to do their job... wtf?

[Bryntrollian]

I'm still stuck on how people are equating Amazon work to slavery, like how exactly does that add up?

[Shadowferal]

I'm still stuck on how people are equating Amazon work to slavery, like how exactly does that add up?

Could start reading up on it; Working For Amazon is a Living Hell

Peeing in trash cans, constant surveillance, and asthma attacks on the job: Amazon workers tell us their warehouse horror stories

[downnola]

Since when is being part of a union a quality for being able to exert civil disobedience?

Isn't civil disobedience an important part of the course in Black History month or such, I don't understand how people can have such little understanding about it.

What exactly do you think unions do? What does it mean to organize for political action? What is political action? What is a strike and what does it accomplish? What is a protest and what does it accomplish?

You'll get there sport. I believe in you.

[Zan15]

Could start reading up on it; Working For Amazon is a Living Hell

Peeing in trash cans, constant surveillance, and asthma attacks on the job: Amazon workers tell us their warehouse horror stories

Don't know every time i read these stories i think to myself how its not shocking they can find a few "horror" stories on a million employees and none of them really turn out to be actual "horror" stories.

Most of them are people bitching they can't take 11 bathroom breaks a day.
The other ones are just extreme examples that are "happenstance" with the pure amount of employees and hours worked a week across the company.


just in the ones you listed....

- overweight guy dies while on break, but they don't say what he died of just make a story out of it.

- warehouse accidents, not quite the thing that makes a place a living hell.

- report attacking them on workplace death that then goes on to say "Despite a pattern of preventable deaths, Amazon is requesting billions in tax breaks for a new headquarters, on top of $1 billion already received from state, local taxpayers." not sure what tax breaks has to do with workplace deaths??

- Sick complaints that really, seem appropriately penalized for. Hell they are not even being penalized most of the time just being tracked so they don't do it excessively. Every company tracks your sick time, where is the problem?

Have these people ever worked at an actual job before?

Points for being ill during pregnancy- umm being sick is being sick. Preferential treatment for being pregnant? Yah that won't cause any issues with other conditions and handicaps nope nah.

"I was ill and unable to come in, and was spoken to like dirt upon return."- Oh no people being mean to me!!

- Complaints about production standards all seem to be people who just are not meeting standards that the majority do. Not every job is for every person, if they can't handle a production oriented job maybe just maybe its not the jobs fault.

- Amazon workers have one paid 30-minute break and two unpaid thirty-minute ones, apparently employees say that the time to get to a toilet or breakroom eats up at least five minutes or sometimes even the majority of the break.

Shit i worked for the second largest insurance company and i did not get a paid break. My lunch was unpaid. 1.5 hours a day break? wow.

I currently work a warehouse job and experience a lot of what amazon workers do. But none of it seems that excessive.

I am sure amazon is a ball breaking experience by a corporate monster that is "by the book" but in reality is it really that bad or is it just a tough job not made for everyone.

[Elegiac]

I am sure amazon is a ball breaking experience by a corporate monster that is "by the book" but in reality is it really that bad

Yes, and this is just a commentary on how awful and dehumanizing the industry standard in this country actually is and not supporting your assertion that a significant pattern of complaints and abuses are just entitled people complaining.

It's funny how every time any business in America gets criticized there's a legion of shills ready to pop out of the woodwork to repeat the same propaganda that has been thrown out against workers rights advocates since forever. "They're entitled", "they're jealous of their employers, "they're lazy", "exploitation is an outlier done by a few bad apple business owners and not a feature of the system", etc.

And the only evidence ever provided is some flavor of personal anecdote, the plural of which is not and will never be 'evidence'.

[Zan15]

Yes, and this is just a commentary on how awful and dehumanizing the industry standard in this country actually is and not supporting your assertion that a significant pattern of complaints and abuses are just entitled people complaining.

'.

A pattern? Or just outliers?

No one called them entitled, it just seems that the #'s do not correlate to something so horrible that its "hell on earth" level of bad working for amazon.

It's funny how every time any business in America gets criticized there's a legion of shills ready to pop out of the woodwork to repeat the same propaganda that has been thrown out against workers rights advocates since forever. "They're entitled", "they're jealous of their employers, "they're lazy", "exploitation is an outlier done by a few bad apple business owners and not a feature of the system", etc.

And the only evidence ever provided is some flavor of personal anecdote, the plural of which is not and will never be 'evidence'.

Oh here we go with calling people asking questions "shills".

Show me some data that is not just some report of a handful of people with complaints.
At best I have seen that they are high on accident rates but they really have not been hit with that many fines or compliance issues relative to the industry.

These very reports that are always linked are the basic definition of "anecdotal"

[Felya]

What exactly do you think unions do? What does it mean to organize for political action? What is political action? What is a strike and what does it accomplish? What is a protest and what does it accomplish?

You'll get there sport. I believe in you.

He has never worked for a living... he doesn’t understand what walking off the job, without a union means... you don’t get unemployment for quitting...

[Felya]

It's amazing how willfully some people are ignoring a few hundred years of labor rights history just so they can be contrarian on an internet forum.

Which should teach you something very important... no amount of learning will teach you, what experience will teach you.

[Bryntrollian]

Could start reading up on it; Working For Amazon is a Living Hell

Peeing in trash cans, constant surveillance, and asthma attacks on the job: Amazon workers tell us their warehouse horror stories

Interesting, a lot of that seems far fetched, but I'm still waiting on the slavery connection.

[Felya]

Interesting, a lot of that seems far fetched, but I'm still waiting on the slavery connection.

Here is a wiki about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery

[SirBeef]

Could start reading up on it; Working For Amazon is a Living Hell

Peeing in trash cans, constant surveillance, and asthma attacks on the job: Amazon workers tell us their warehouse horror stories

I've kept quite on this but my daughter works at Amazon. She doesn't need to, I advised her against since I've read accounts and we live very comfortably and she has more than enough in her accounts to not work, but her less fortunate friends went to work their so She applied to spend some time before leaving for college in a few months. Mind you she has never worked a day in her life.

She said the stories seem to be from people who don't like to work, or may have happened in the past before the $15/hr wages. But her facility, the one in Romulus, MI, she works for 3-4 hours then has a mandated 30 min break, works another 2.5-3 then gets another mandated 30 min break, then finishes out her 10 hour shift. I was worried about the monitoring and surveillance as well. She says they track your activity, you are not supposed to have more than 30min off task while not on break during the week. Now my daughter is a talker and a social person who will stop doing what she is doing to talk. She has never, ad least admittedly, been written up for any of these "strict" violations many of these complaints seem to be about.

She says people do complain about hours but you are told you are in control of your time, with vacation, PTO(can be used in minute increments), they offer voluntary time off, unpaid time off, you can even swap a day if you want or need to change a day during the week. But she feels the people who complain, just don't like working. She's having fun, mind you this is her facility, it may not be representative of other locations. But for someone who has never worked, she enjoys it.

I didn't want to say anything positive and bee seen as an Amazon supporter. I fully support the unionizing efforts, and bringing living wages, humanitarian working conditions, and safe working conditions to all their facilities. I just think some of this may be overblown, or not truly representative of all the warehouse locations.

[TigTone]

I've kept quite on this but my daughter works at Amazon. She doesn't need to, I advised her against since I've read accounts and we live very comfortably.

A lot of it imo has to do with who manages the warehouse locations.

Bad managers will have bad production and bad/unhealthy work environments.

For example, my mother recently left Cintas because of its terrible work environment created by the self serving supervisors.

They have lost two major contracts and many minor ones within 3 years.

[SirBeef]

A lot of it imo has to do with who manages the warehouse locations.

Bad managers will have bad production and bad/unhealthy work environments.

For example, my mother recently left Cintas because of its terrible work environment created by the self serving supervisors.

They have lost two major contracts and many minor ones within 3 years.

Right. I've had plenty of bad management make things seem hopeless and good management make things seem amazing. I've long suspected it's specific incidents as opposed to widespread issues. Still no excuse and if they unionize that will be huge.

[unfilteredJW]

LMAO

Since when is being part of a union a quality for being able to exert civil disobedience?

Isn't civil disobedience an important part of the course in Black History month or such, I don't understand how people can have such little understanding about it.

Don't call other people clowns when you're just mindlessly copying other people's flawed arguments. You guys do that a bit too often and then go ahead and pat each other on the backs for being so smart, "because we all said the same thing." Big brain gang right there.

I see addressing what I said was too hard so you went this route.

Bold move Anarch.

[Shalcker]

I see addressing what I said was too hard so you went this route.

You think people cannot have the courage to resist unless backed by the union?

That unless their job is secure resistance is impossible?

That isn't how it usually worked through history when change happened.