Unions can be useful… I have a friend who after 30 years would clearly be fired and replaced by three new employees with no experience because, to a director it looks like he or she saved money and so can be guaranteed a promotion…
Where I disagree with Unions is that they have no accountability. If they negociate a scrappy deal or employees get no salary increase, they should give back to the employee as a padding or a rainy day situation considering union members do continue to pay the ever increasing fee of union membership.
I see unions here in Quebec(Canada) becoming fabulously rich while their scrape by…
Just look at companies that have seamstresses, they will offer full suits for the higher strata of society and yet the working conditions are like sweat shops… And they are unionized which makes you wonder how bad it could get…
It feels, from my perspective that unions are useful so long as people can opt out and vote anonymously which is not always the case…
I don’t know enough to agree or disagree, but some citations would really help support your argument.
While I don’t agree with her sentiment, I can absolutely believe some human union employees would say this. I don’t know if this applies to Amazon jobs, but in the union I know (caregivers) one problem is workers with very few hours have to pay the same monthly dues. Still not really a valid point for most people, but for those few that get caught in it, definitely bittersweet and they will grumble.
I remember feeling this way when I was 18. I thought “well the laws already cover me, so why am I paying for this?”
Anyway, I grew up since then.
I used to consider myself libertarian. Now I understand how basic that is.
Think of it this way, when you’re way ahead in a video game (one without anti-snowball mechanics), how hard is it to maintain and grow that lead? First, when it’s a team game, you’re likely to have opponents just leave, or start fighting each other.
Some people will say the world isn’t zero sum, which is true. But when they take the whole sum, it sure feels that way.
Besides just what is right, the economy works better for everyone when people have money to spend. People who have something to lose commit less crime. If all the money does collect in very few hands, the economy grinds to a halt.
I’ve always wondered, what prevents creating a corporation to hire every worker possible, makes them proportional owners, and then negotiates wages and benefits on their behalf?
One enormous corporation that has all of the benefits of a union.
I think a major issue is that if the corporation cannot find work for all of its employees, how will it pay them? And since, presumably, there will be admin staff required who also need to be paid, the amount this corporation will charge the employers of the workers will have to be more than is paid to the workers. If this amount is significant, employers can poach employees from the “union corp” by offering more money, while still saving themselves money.
If it operates like an agency, it’s already at a disadvantage because the real profit is being made by someone else anyway. Otherwise it’s a neat idea.
You don’t hire an agency to break even, you hire an agency to work on projects you assume will bring you profit. In my industry in particular, you might hire some agency employees, spend a few hundred thousand a year, to help finish a product that will rake in tens of millions a year, or to create some internal tooling that saves you millions in employee productivity.
So a co-op?
Like Mondragon?
Not the exact same thing, but is a step in moving society that way, but read up on Germany’s co-determination laws.
I think this model exists. waitrose in UK might be one of them, not sure though.
This person may be a higher up at Amazon, knowing that unions will diminish her bonuses (salary) because the workers underneath her are making more and no quotas are being met.
This is no excuse though
This was from the amazon beef with Bernie sanders back in like 2019. Amazon created a bunch of these fake accounts only to be called out for it later.
https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/30/amazon-twitter-defenders-fake-accounts
I literally thought the headline said “onions.”
Imagine my disappointment.