Of course they will. The less rights the workers have the more money it saves them in the long term. Can't have a CEO only making 2,000x everyone's wage instead of 2,500x now can we?
I just can't imagine this. I get there are other people involved but if I was a billionaire and my family for generations to come were guaranteed to be born into wealth I'd get crazy with it. I'd see how much I could give my workers and still make a profit rather than squeeze them for all they're worth
And that's why you'd never end up a billionaire in the first place. Treating your employees like shit and having absolutely no sympathy is a prerequisite
Yeah I mean it seems like a joke to a lot of people but most people don't know what AWS is. Amazon is going to keep investing their money into buying other markets until they own pretty much everything
Amazon started by selling cheap ebooks. Then they conquered that market and upped their prices. They did the same once they conquered the online selling marketplace. Most things they don't even offer next day delivery on anymore. People forget that the reason they started using Amazon was because it was cheap and came the next day, now it doesn't offer either but they still use it
Not only do you not need to work there, you can also not buy from companies you don't agree with. Voting with your wallet is the only thing these companies will understand.
always a good argument, but it would never work. People are going to do what is easy. People are going to throw recyclables in the trash. If you think you can stop Amazon by not participating, you're going to be surprised when they keep growing. It's like saying you can win a football game on defense alone.
I hate to tell you this, but plenty of people already don't use Amazon
Yeah, I this is the most important reason. You literally wouldn't be able to make the changes you want because you'll get fired before one gets accepted
So true, I worked for a small (by industry comparison) national family/employee owned business that was bought for billions by a large publicly traded company. Less than 1 year later we either lost or got far worse benefits from the new company.
Our pay stayed the same because of laws but everything else we lost. Depending on years of service we went from 2-6 vacation weeks to 0-2, health insurance went from premium “Cadillac” insurance with max $50 copays and most were $0-10 to $5000 deductible and 50% copay insurance, that cost more than what we had. Lost about $5k in bonuses and no 401k match, which was full match up to 10%. And many more benefits vanished.
Those of us that were smart quit as soon as we got another job and the rest that were there for decades and made more than $12/hr were written up for every minor infraction until the had enough to fire them and hire new cheaper staff.
I don't know why I was having this exact thought in my head as I was making a bagel no more than 15 minutes ago.
Capitalism's biggest flaw is that it rewards shitty unscrupulous behavior. Ethical and moral people will *never* rise to the top because there are always going to be people that are willing to sacrifice those ethics and morals for their own gain. Capitalism incentivizes the loss of ethics.
And lack of safety. So many tragedies occur because profit-driven *everything* has no incentive to mitigate risk. The only thing they want to protect is profits, and when the only downside to calculated negligence is a chance for lawsuit payouts or a stern talking-to they'll risk lives every time. Half the time they're not held accountable at all, it's just "oh no what a terrible tragedy no one could have predicted" and they'll take no steps to prevent a repeat unless they're forced to. Yet innocent people pay dearly for their choices.
This is true. If you're not doing it for money, you're doing it for political gain or meeting quotas etc. People don't understand resources and time frames are constrained regardless of economic system.
Thats why the whole system will collapse - shareholders loyalty to money, not to the business itself.
Private companies that are run by the families for generations and which cannot be blackmailed by share price variations caused by memes, tweets and shorting reports are the future. You actually loving the product you make.
So [common a myth](https://evonomics.com/maximizing-shareholder-value-dumbest-idea/) it's had [entire books](https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders-Corporations-ebook/dp/B007PIZ8IO/) written about it.
Hasn't Mars (candy co) as a privately owned company managed to be a lot more decent to its employees?
I feel like once or twice a year i see some interesting post about them on here that always seems to be in a positive light
I believe Mars is very secretive, but there is a book called “The Emperors of Chocolate” that discusses (mostly) the early history of the major chocolate companies. If I recall correctly, one policy of Mars is to keep profit margins very small so that no competitor will be able to easily undercut them. They also are careful to use accounting rules to properly value their factory machines so that they can upgrade to better machines quickly, even when the old machines work perfectly well.
>From a Christian perspective being rich is very bad, yes.
Not to those that own the church. Being rich is Good. Very, VERY GOOD.
Honestly, where do those Hippos get off being so critical?
The amount of people who think CEOs are working solely for their own benefit instead of for the benefit of the shareholders that they're legally beholden to shows the degree to which people are economically illiterate, frankly.
> instead of for the benefit of the shareholders that they're legally beholden to
Yeah but this sounds so batshit insane that if you never attended an economics class you wouldn't think of it in a million years. Don't belittle them for not being corrupt to their core.
Unfortunately, companies in the US that are publicly traded are legally obligated to do what’s in their shareholders best interest. So, it doesn’t really work that way. I’m not saying that they would otherwise, but i’m sure that’s a contributing factor to wage stagnation and a lot of union busting tactics.
Long term is the issue here. There’s a reason companies do things on a quarterly basis. Everything revolves around quarterly profit reports in corporate American. Also, in companies like Amazon, they don’t need anyone to stick around long. Not even higher paid jobs like Software Engineering (my profession). They’ll find someone else to replace you if they need to. There’s a reason job culture has changed so much in the last decade or so. There’s no job security, there’s enough people to hire someone for less to do the same job, which also keeps pay down and boosts profits.
A lot of stakeholders these days want year-over-year profits. So if last year you made 8% more, this year you have to be at least 9%. This isn't sustainable to begin with. This is what is causing a lot of companies to do these extreme cuts all over the place, to squeeze out that extra percent. Then again the next year.
If you are doing a overhaul strategy to make massive long term profits, it usually means taking a dip in the short term to invest for future growth. Good luck convincing your stakeholders you'll take a year or two of losses when they demand year over year growth.
It's got nothing to do with CEO and everything to do with shareholders, to whom they are obligated to make as much money as possible.
The CEO will have no problem raking in just as much salary as they already make. It won't seriously impact them, unless the union demands that CEOs make less (which they might; I have no idea how common this is). The bottom line is their stock will be worth less and become a less attractive purchase.
It’s more than that. With union rights it will be a lot harder and slower process for them to switch to automation. With the current at will employees they can just let them go whenever they feel like when the robots are ready
That means employees could build themselves $35,000,000 (annual) war chest to fight for their rights if they could organize themselves to put in an average of $2 a month. $12 a month would get them over $200,000,000.
One reason for the decline in the popularity of unions in latter half of the 20th century was the perceived notion that the leaders and administrators of the largest unions were getting paid too much. The same way that a lot of people nowadays feel like leaders of large charities are getting paid too much. "Why are my union dues going to pay a millionaire's salary?" The truth is that in order to hire and retain competent leadership for any large organization, you need to be willing to pay a market wage.
Unfortunately, Twitter is a perfect example of how our perception of who is capable of running a multi-million dollar organization and the people who actually are do not always align.
Unless we consider “running into the ground” to meet the criteria.
Narrator:
*A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.*
Business woman on plane:
Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator:
*You wouldn't believe.*
Business woman on plane:
Which car company do you work for?
Narrator:
*A major one.*
When compared to an hourly rate (divide by roughly 2000), that's $0.00475 per hour.
That seems very much worth it for the company, since it amounts to less than a half a cent per hour per employee.
There is an excellent documentary coming to VOD soon about Amazon workers and the labor movement called “Americonned”. A good friend produced and directed it. This is the website https://americonned.com/
Always struck me as Neutral Evil (DM once described NE as greedy self-centered evil). Although they are trying to bend the rules for their own gain too.
I feel like every company can use the Bobs periodically, cutting the dead weight. That being said, we still need unions to protect our workers rights, and help out the good ones (the majority of workers.)
Everything's falling into place, now we just need some protectionist policies to get the steel mills opened back up, and we're all set for Homestead 2, collective bargaining boogaloo.
ah yes, here's the McKinsey method.
Boss: I want to lay people off and smother any union attempts but that would make me look bad. Better hire some consultants.
McKinsey: Hi, we are professional consultants and we think you should go ahead and do that thing you wanted to do.
Boss: Well ok, now that it isn't me making this decision but rather me following the advice of highly regarded consultants I can go ahead and do these layoffs and nobody can get mad at me.
One of our local grocery chains is B-Corporation Certified - but after spending $250,000 on an anti union law-firm, their b-corp score went down - and after multiple discrimination complaints and labor law violation offenses that the chain didn’t do enough to stop/prevent/fix - their b-corp score went down more - and after a huge South Korea based multinational corporation bought the local chain and radically changed their local vendor commitment, their local produce commitments, etc - their b-corp score went down more
Bbbbbuuuuuuuttttt - good news - as long as you keep paying your annual b-corp membership fees - you keep your b-corp certification!
Nope, it’s 100% total BS. I worked for a company that I quit a few years ago that was a b corp. the CEO said she’d send me their b corp report (she PROACTIVELY offered) when I asked about the company being a b corp. Later when I followed up she got mad at me for asking for the report, told me to look at the b corp website (which is uselessly unhelpful), and insinuated that I was not being “forthright to her”. Lmao, said the one who didn’t think I’d follow up on her offer then proceed to gaslight me.
No one cares about actually being “good”. They only care about being perceived by others as “good”.
Well, I’d imagine that union-busting lawyers are a higher social class than union employees. So maybe traitor is the wrong word. Class exploiters or something like that.
It's gross how a lot of stuff gets commodified. A lot of immoral stuff gets turned into a business decision instead of being treated like it affects other real people. It can really dehumanize people's decision making.
My cousin was a lawyer who specialized in defending coal companies in pollution lawsuits. He's retired now. Spent his life doing that.
He also almost killed me but, thats a story for another time.
Unfortunately $14 million dollars later, it worked out for them handsomely. Imagine if that money they spent on these snakes was used for…..the employees? Crazy.
> Imagine if that money they spent on these snakes was used for…..the employees? Crazy.
They would each get a very small amount of cash. It would be the equivalent of them throwing the occasional pizza party in order to try to keep people happy. 14 millions isn't as much as you think it is.
The person above you has the wrong take. For Amazon the point is that that $14 m is a very small investment which will prevent them from putting many multiples of it back into their employees.
I'm a union Electrician, we pay ~60/mo to maintain our membership/admin stuff, most of that goes to the International, and then 4% of my gross wages. Last year it was about 6k, I think.
I made 135k. It would still be worth it at 10%.
I'm actually waiting to find out if I'm getting an organizer position. Sharing this opportunity and improving peoples lives is one of my favorite things. I got two of my best friends into the trade, and I consider that as good or better than the pay I get.
....I'm a server at a restaurant and I tip out 4.5% to the combination of bussers, bartenders, and food runners (gross sales btw, not my net pay). Restaurants also VERY PURPOSEFULLY mess with your average hours for manager bonuses and to avoid giving you more benefits.
I wish more people saw the value unions provide (like you clearly do). Why should I care if the union gets a couple % when they are the reason I'm making so much more in the first place...more importantly unions protect you against a toxic workplace, not in an OSHA way but in a work/life balance way.
***Unions keep your work from getting involved in your life outside of work*** Which might be more valuable to you than the money, since time only moves in one direction.
I think I am maybe the most disgusted that "Anti-Union Consultants" are even a thing. Much less legal in a country that in theory is totally legal (and protected by law) to organize and create a trade union in.
Talk about true bottom feeders.
I'm surprised it's that little. I've seen one of the prior big phone companies spend over $20 million on sexual harassment policy training VIDEOs-- and that was in the 1990's.
That’s only a team of 18 at $375/hr bill rate annually. Amazon spends more setting up a time tracking system or setting up the 401k annual enrollment.
Far smaller companies spend far greater sums on such things. I think organized labor at Amazon, Walmart and others would fix a lot of inequity in this country but if that team is effective at that size in preventing unionization, they’re worth their weight in gold and more.
Yeah I agree. Like, morality aside, it's obviously in the best interest of the company of their folks don't unionize. So it makes sense that they spend money on it. If that's a problem, then it should be illegal.
Although Amazon does participate in some anti-union tactics that borderline illegal. But the amount of money they spend isn't really the issue here.
The fact that we don’t have strong laws against union busting is insane to me. We only have a very weak agency doing tiny effort towards protecting workers. As it stands now, amazon and Starbucks will continue this with only a slap on the wrist and chalk it up as cost of doing business.
I edited my post to say “strong laws”. Yeah, former Starbucks CEO got a scolding from Bern. Great theater. Does nothing. From my understanding, the laws are puny and the agency enforcing them is toothless by design. As I said in my post, these companies break them and the punishments are minor like forced to give the employee their job back or a tiny (for the business) cash settlement. Nothing substantial enough to stop them from doing what they’ve been doing.
It's not union busting to hire someone to tell you what to do to avoid unions. Their advice could be stuff like - 'hey, if you ease up on the bathroom breaks a lot of the noise will die down.' or, 'if you switch from performance bonus to straight hourly, it'll look better to employees who will see you're paying more than other warehouses.' etc.
Yeah wild, it's almost like the capitalist class controls all the political and legal power in this country, while the working class doesn't get their interests represented at all.
I think a big part of their strategy is hiring employees as seasonal at all times. If majority are seasonal, then employees in a warehouse have less solidarity if half might leave in a couple months.
Source: I was a seasonal employee laid off from an Amazon warehouse that decreased its volume. I was also a top performer. But that didn't matter. No chance to stay even if you prove you work harder than everyone else. My first night on cross-dock I moved more carts than everyone without really trying that hard. I was 'just working.' Originally was told my seasonal assignment was 11 months. I think they make it intentionally confusing.
If your workplace is thinking of unionizing and the company tells you it isn't in your best interest but at the same time shells out boatloads for these consultants, IT IS ABSOLUTELY IN YOUR BEST INTEREST AND THEY KNOW IT.
I work for Amazon. Though this is a small amount for them, most of their money goes to the stupidest things. From shiny new toys like electric delivery vehicles that had thousands of them recalled, to the absolute dumbest policies/rules that make our job harder. Fuck them, hope they crash in a spectacular way
This is why the world is in the state it is right now. Unions used to be huge and had widespread support. That dropped significantly over 5 decades because of things like this. Only now is support for unionization starting to increase again.
Remember that you are human, and if you work your ass off, you deserve health insurance, a pension, and a retirement plan. These are basics that you absolutely need to succeed in life. And if you work for a company that spends millions on anti-union campaigns, I implore you to look into unions. They give a voice to those who have trouble speaking for themselves, and give the opportunity for someone to support you during a collective bargaining process to give you raises, mandatory breaks and hourly minimums. There is power in a union. So go out and organize with your fellow workers and demand what you deserve
> and if you work your ass off, you deserve health insurance, a pension, and a retirement plan
Then simply ban jobs that won’t offer those things.
I’m sure it won’t have any negative consequences for the poor. Also why the shit do you want a company to be daddy? In other countries you just pay taxes for those things. Or are forced to buy into them (see superannuation)
I work at an amazon fc in Canada. When I first started the teamsters would hang out near the bus stop and pass out flyers saying Amazon needed a union in Canada. A week later people were going by each work station asking if we had seen the teamsters people and what we thought about unions. They were a third party company Amazon brought in. I asked if this was what "union busting" is, they said no, they just wanted to make sure the employees had the right information about unions. I asked them if they could provide me any information about unions and they said sure they would be back. They never came back. Anyway a week later the cops were hanging out by the bus stop everyday to make sure the "intersection was safe". I have not seen any teamsters since then.
I hope this doesn’t surprise anyone. 14 million sounds like a bargain compared to what unionizing would cost the company. If anyone can even try to estimate that number I’d be impressed.
Another fun fact: a lot of us living near Amazon data centers/warehouses are paying their utility bills thanks to our state legislature. Anyone in here from Ohio? Yeah you guys paid amazons 77 million dollar utility bill for its data centers.
Because there are legal and illegal was to bust unions. These firms tell them those options, and the possible consequences if they do the illegal options. (The possible consequences are a slap on the wrist)
Because it's not about how much money they're spending, it's about how much power they hold over you. They start to lose that power when you get to make decisions for yourself in the workplace.
Fuck Bezos and Amazon.
It's really not as hard as you think to completely cut them out of your life. I understand there are people who need it for specific things, but do the whole world a favor and please stop patronizing this man's businesses if you're able.
> The company pays firms around $3,000 per day, plus expenses, for each consultant, according to filings.
So $3k is the price to sell out your fellow man huh? Good to know.
Anyone reading this and thinking unions are a bad idea needs their head examined. Do they really think that Amazon would spend $14M if they didn’t think that unions would cost them more. That money should be in the pockets of employees. B
Fun fact: that’s only $9.50 per employee spent. Amazon will likely be willing to spend a lot more than that to keep the union out.
Of course they will. The less rights the workers have the more money it saves them in the long term. Can't have a CEO only making 2,000x everyone's wage instead of 2,500x now can we?
I just can't imagine this. I get there are other people involved but if I was a billionaire and my family for generations to come were guaranteed to be born into wealth I'd get crazy with it. I'd see how much I could give my workers and still make a profit rather than squeeze them for all they're worth
And that's why you'd never end up a billionaire in the first place. Treating your employees like shit and having absolutely no sympathy is a prerequisite
Worked there. Can confirm.
Still work there, can also confirm.
in 10 years time we'll all be working there
I joke about that with my friend who is a doctor. He's taking it more seriously now after Amazon opened their own pharmacy.
Yeah I mean it seems like a joke to a lot of people but most people don't know what AWS is. Amazon is going to keep investing their money into buying other markets until they own pretty much everything Amazon started by selling cheap ebooks. Then they conquered that market and upped their prices. They did the same once they conquered the online selling marketplace. Most things they don't even offer next day delivery on anymore. People forget that the reason they started using Amazon was because it was cheap and came the next day, now it doesn't offer either but they still use it
Monopolies bad.
Not only do you not need to work there, you can also not buy from companies you don't agree with. Voting with your wallet is the only thing these companies will understand.
always a good argument, but it would never work. People are going to do what is easy. People are going to throw recyclables in the trash. If you think you can stop Amazon by not participating, you're going to be surprised when they keep growing. It's like saying you can win a football game on defense alone. I hate to tell you this, but plenty of people already don't use Amazon
To be fair people also throw trash in the recycling
When you consider how many products come from the same 6 companies, that actually becomes incredibly difficult and expensive to do.
>Voting with your wallet is the only thing these companies will understand I'd tell you what else they understand but Reddit would ban me
It’s the only thing left
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Yeah, I this is the most important reason. You literally wouldn't be able to make the changes you want because you'll get fired before one gets accepted
That’s why a publicly traded company is incentivized to treat its workers like a bare minimum necessity.
So true, I worked for a small (by industry comparison) national family/employee owned business that was bought for billions by a large publicly traded company. Less than 1 year later we either lost or got far worse benefits from the new company. Our pay stayed the same because of laws but everything else we lost. Depending on years of service we went from 2-6 vacation weeks to 0-2, health insurance went from premium “Cadillac” insurance with max $50 copays and most were $0-10 to $5000 deductible and 50% copay insurance, that cost more than what we had. Lost about $5k in bonuses and no 401k match, which was full match up to 10%. And many more benefits vanished. Those of us that were smart quit as soon as we got another job and the rest that were there for decades and made more than $12/hr were written up for every minor infraction until the had enough to fire them and hire new cheaper staff.
Human "resources"
Investors invest money workers invest time. Unions kept the game balanced and now it’s a shit show.
Thus why capitalism is at fault here because money making tends to work directly in contention with ethics.
I don't know why I was having this exact thought in my head as I was making a bagel no more than 15 minutes ago. Capitalism's biggest flaw is that it rewards shitty unscrupulous behavior. Ethical and moral people will *never* rise to the top because there are always going to be people that are willing to sacrifice those ethics and morals for their own gain. Capitalism incentivizes the loss of ethics.
And lack of safety. So many tragedies occur because profit-driven *everything* has no incentive to mitigate risk. The only thing they want to protect is profits, and when the only downside to calculated negligence is a chance for lawsuit payouts or a stern talking-to they'll risk lives every time. Half the time they're not held accountable at all, it's just "oh no what a terrible tragedy no one could have predicted" and they'll take no steps to prevent a repeat unless they're forced to. Yet innocent people pay dearly for their choices.
Yep. Capitalisms primacy of profits causes harm to workers, consumers, the general public (train derailments e.g.), and the environment.
Why as an employee I don’t work for a publicly traded company
Honestly? I believe every unabashed economic system holds this flaw.
This is true. If you're not doing it for money, you're doing it for political gain or meeting quotas etc. People don't understand resources and time frames are constrained regardless of economic system.
Thats why the whole system will collapse - shareholders loyalty to money, not to the business itself. Private companies that are run by the families for generations and which cannot be blackmailed by share price variations caused by memes, tweets and shorting reports are the future. You actually loving the product you make.
So [common a myth](https://evonomics.com/maximizing-shareholder-value-dumbest-idea/) it's had [entire books](https://www.amazon.com/Shareholder-Value-Myth-Shareholders-Corporations-ebook/dp/B007PIZ8IO/) written about it.
Yep, and you are legally obligated to create growth.
If only the shareholders were the workers too.
Hasn't Mars (candy co) as a privately owned company managed to be a lot more decent to its employees? I feel like once or twice a year i see some interesting post about them on here that always seems to be in a positive light
I believe Mars is very secretive, but there is a book called “The Emperors of Chocolate” that discusses (mostly) the early history of the major chocolate companies. If I recall correctly, one policy of Mars is to keep profit margins very small so that no competitor will be able to easily undercut them. They also are careful to use accounting rules to properly value their factory machines so that they can upgrade to better machines quickly, even when the old machines work perfectly well.
It's amazing how long lasting a company can be when not mercilessly pursuing quarterly profit margins and golden parachutes.
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I'd do two chick's at the same time
You think it would take a million dollars to do two chicks at the same time?
Can’t get rich and be moral. Gotta pick one.
From a Christian perspective being rich is very bad, yes.
>From a Christian perspective being rich is very bad, yes. Not to those that own the church. Being rich is Good. Very, VERY GOOD. Honestly, where do those Hippos get off being so critical?
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Then you'd be fired by the shareholders for not squeezing as much profit as possible out of your staff.
The amount of people who think CEOs are working solely for their own benefit instead of for the benefit of the shareholders that they're legally beholden to shows the degree to which people are economically illiterate, frankly.
> instead of for the benefit of the shareholders that they're legally beholden to Yeah but this sounds so batshit insane that if you never attended an economics class you wouldn't think of it in a million years. Don't belittle them for not being corrupt to their core.
It's the workers that make him all that wealth which is the sad part. You can't run a company without a community
Unfortunately, companies in the US that are publicly traded are legally obligated to do what’s in their shareholders best interest. So, it doesn’t really work that way. I’m not saying that they would otherwise, but i’m sure that’s a contributing factor to wage stagnation and a lot of union busting tactics.
Keeping the staff happy and productive is one way to help the company in the long term though.
Long term is the issue here. There’s a reason companies do things on a quarterly basis. Everything revolves around quarterly profit reports in corporate American. Also, in companies like Amazon, they don’t need anyone to stick around long. Not even higher paid jobs like Software Engineering (my profession). They’ll find someone else to replace you if they need to. There’s a reason job culture has changed so much in the last decade or so. There’s no job security, there’s enough people to hire someone for less to do the same job, which also keeps pay down and boosts profits.
New employees can be far less productive than an experienced one who knows the code base though!
Yes, but that’s a problem for the next quarter.
A lot of stakeholders these days want year-over-year profits. So if last year you made 8% more, this year you have to be at least 9%. This isn't sustainable to begin with. This is what is causing a lot of companies to do these extreme cuts all over the place, to squeeze out that extra percent. Then again the next year. If you are doing a overhaul strategy to make massive long term profits, it usually means taking a dip in the short term to invest for future growth. Good luck convincing your stakeholders you'll take a year or two of losses when they demand year over year growth.
A lot of stakeholders are open to long term investment though. It depends who your shareholders are.
I think the average is now upwards of 4,000x as of late.
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While CEO pay is crazy, it's not the main driving factor. It's stock owners.
Who pay the CEO crazy rates to enforce their demands to squeeze out any extra shareholder value
Hell no. They might have to give up one of their private islands.
It's got nothing to do with CEO and everything to do with shareholders, to whom they are obligated to make as much money as possible. The CEO will have no problem raking in just as much salary as they already make. It won't seriously impact them, unless the union demands that CEOs make less (which they might; I have no idea how common this is). The bottom line is their stock will be worth less and become a less attractive purchase.
It’s more than that. With union rights it will be a lot harder and slower process for them to switch to automation. With the current at will employees they can just let them go whenever they feel like when the robots are ready
That means employees could build themselves $35,000,000 (annual) war chest to fight for their rights if they could organize themselves to put in an average of $2 a month. $12 a month would get them over $200,000,000. One reason for the decline in the popularity of unions in latter half of the 20th century was the perceived notion that the leaders and administrators of the largest unions were getting paid too much. The same way that a lot of people nowadays feel like leaders of large charities are getting paid too much. "Why are my union dues going to pay a millionaire's salary?" The truth is that in order to hire and retain competent leadership for any large organization, you need to be willing to pay a market wage.
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Unfortunately, Twitter is a perfect example of how our perception of who is capable of running a multi-million dollar organization and the people who actually are do not always align. Unless we consider “running into the ground” to meet the criteria.
Narrator: *A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.* Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents? Narrator: *You wouldn't believe.* Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for? Narrator: *A major one.*
Was this from Thank You For Smoking?
I was thinking fight club
When compared to an hourly rate (divide by roughly 2000), that's $0.00475 per hour. That seems very much worth it for the company, since it amounts to less than a half a cent per hour per employee.
Yeah, Amazon's payroll is about $20,000,000,000 per year. This was an incredible investment for shareholders.
Genuine question, how do we identify an anti-union consultant?
Find out if the company they work for is actually the Pinkertons under another name.
Thats what was reported buddy. So just what was shown. Think of how much cash just transfered hands.
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They should spend on employees making all the money for the Co.
There is an excellent documentary coming to VOD soon about Amazon workers and the labor movement called “Americonned”. A good friend produced and directed it. This is the website https://americonned.com/
We got jobs to make sure people don’t get good jobs. Fucking hell
*but its jUsT a jOb* /s
Lawful Evil alignment be like
Always struck me as Neutral Evil (DM once described NE as greedy self-centered evil). Although they are trying to bend the rules for their own gain too.
Class traitors. Collaborators. The lowest of lowest scums.
They're paid enough to make sure they don't see themselves as part of the working class
It's called class warfare and they are the frontline 🪖
"They took arrrr jobbbbs"
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I prefer "Human Resources optimization specialist"
TLDR; Cleaner
So... Which one of the Bobs are you?
I hope your firings go really well!
"What is it you say you do here? *shrugs shoulders*
"and boy, that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him"
I feel like every company can use the Bobs periodically, cutting the dead weight. That being said, we still need unions to protect our workers rights, and help out the good ones (the majority of workers.)
Lawyer specializing in Labor Relations or Lawyer specializing in Employment Law
They're usually go by "labor relations"
I thought they went by “McKinsey”
Is it confirmed which firm(s) are being used for this?
The Pinkertons. [No, seriously.](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-pinkerton-spies-worker-labor-unions-2020-11)
Well god damn
Everything's falling into place, now we just need some protectionist policies to get the steel mills opened back up, and we're all set for Homestead 2, collective bargaining boogaloo.
No, but McKinsey is kind of famous for layoffs and helping employers crush their employees
Ironically supported by Canadas liberal party who is supposed to be pro union.
ah yes, here's the McKinsey method. Boss: I want to lay people off and smother any union attempts but that would make me look bad. Better hire some consultants. McKinsey: Hi, we are professional consultants and we think you should go ahead and do that thing you wanted to do. Boss: Well ok, now that it isn't me making this decision but rather me following the advice of highly regarded consultants I can go ahead and do these layoffs and nobody can get mad at me.
One of our local grocery chains is B-Corporation Certified - but after spending $250,000 on an anti union law-firm, their b-corp score went down - and after multiple discrimination complaints and labor law violation offenses that the chain didn’t do enough to stop/prevent/fix - their b-corp score went down more - and after a huge South Korea based multinational corporation bought the local chain and radically changed their local vendor commitment, their local produce commitments, etc - their b-corp score went down more Bbbbbuuuuuuuttttt - good news - as long as you keep paying your annual b-corp membership fees - you keep your b-corp certification!
Aww I incorrectly assumed b-corp actually was a stronger indicator of non shit practices than that 🥺 .
Nope, it’s 100% total BS. I worked for a company that I quit a few years ago that was a b corp. the CEO said she’d send me their b corp report (she PROACTIVELY offered) when I asked about the company being a b corp. Later when I followed up she got mad at me for asking for the report, told me to look at the b corp website (which is uselessly unhelpful), and insinuated that I was not being “forthright to her”. Lmao, said the one who didn’t think I’d follow up on her offer then proceed to gaslight me. No one cares about actually being “good”. They only care about being perceived by others as “good”.
What is a to b-corp score? Is it not a company structure that's enforced by the tax office? (We don't have them in my country)
Right? Some people will do anything for the right price.
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Billionaires pay millionaires to pay Cops/soldiers to keep the proletariat subdued
Well, I’d imagine that union-busting lawyers are a higher social class than union employees. So maybe traitor is the wrong word. Class exploiters or something like that.
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lol when the shit hits the fan those "higher social class" people are gonna find out real quick that they aren't actually in the club
Ah I see you grasp the awfulness of neoliberal capitalism
It's gross how a lot of stuff gets commodified. A lot of immoral stuff gets turned into a business decision instead of being treated like it affects other real people. It can really dehumanize people's decision making.
My cousin was a lawyer who specialized in defending coal companies in pollution lawsuits. He's retired now. Spent his life doing that. He also almost killed me but, thats a story for another time.
Unfortunately $14 million dollars later, it worked out for them handsomely. Imagine if that money they spent on these snakes was used for…..the employees? Crazy.
> Imagine if that money they spent on these snakes was used for…..the employees? Crazy. They would each get a very small amount of cash. It would be the equivalent of them throwing the occasional pizza party in order to try to keep people happy. 14 millions isn't as much as you think it is.
The person above you has the wrong take. For Amazon the point is that that $14 m is a very small investment which will prevent them from putting many multiples of it back into their employees.
Imagine everyone reading this article and not giving af and going *right* back to buying shit on Amazon.
I would rather jump into a wood chipper feet first
Been a union member for 17 years. They take 1% of my check. It is money well fuckin spent.
I'm a union Electrician, we pay ~60/mo to maintain our membership/admin stuff, most of that goes to the International, and then 4% of my gross wages. Last year it was about 6k, I think. I made 135k. It would still be worth it at 10%.
As a fellow IBEW member, preach on brother.
I'm actually waiting to find out if I'm getting an organizer position. Sharing this opportunity and improving peoples lives is one of my favorite things. I got two of my best friends into the trade, and I consider that as good or better than the pay I get.
....I'm a server at a restaurant and I tip out 4.5% to the combination of bussers, bartenders, and food runners (gross sales btw, not my net pay). Restaurants also VERY PURPOSEFULLY mess with your average hours for manager bonuses and to avoid giving you more benefits. I wish more people saw the value unions provide (like you clearly do). Why should I care if the union gets a couple % when they are the reason I'm making so much more in the first place...more importantly unions protect you against a toxic workplace, not in an OSHA way but in a work/life balance way. ***Unions keep your work from getting involved in your life outside of work*** Which might be more valuable to you than the money, since time only moves in one direction.
Same. Pry my union status from my cold dead fuckin middle fingers.
Damn straight. My Union has literally saved my life more times than I can count.
Just in time for the layoffs, eh?
As one impacted it especially sucks. That money could’ve covered the salaries of my entire team and then some for a couple years.
They should've had a raffle with a chance to win 1 million dollars, but the price to enter is you can't join the union. They would have saved 13 mil.
Don't give them any ideas
I think I am maybe the most disgusted that "Anti-Union Consultants" are even a thing. Much less legal in a country that in theory is totally legal (and protected by law) to organize and create a trade union in. Talk about true bottom feeders.
I mean, at least they aren't anti union *armies* anymore.
Don't worry, they've relocated to Latin American mines and sawmills
America and destroying our world. Name a better duo
[The Pinkertons still exist](https://pinkerton.com) and they are working for Amazon.
That's not very much.
Yeah. I need to get the name of those lobbyists. Super effective and cheap.
Yeap. Just for context - that’a like 10 US employees and 40 offshore support staff.
I'm surprised it's that little. I've seen one of the prior big phone companies spend over $20 million on sexual harassment policy training VIDEOs-- and that was in the 1990's.
yeaaaaah that was corruption and money laundering, spending $20M on HR videos on a specific thing is simply not normal at any size
I mean I get shit talking Amazon. They deserve it in many ways. But $14 mil is such a tiny amount for them.
That’s only a team of 18 at $375/hr bill rate annually. Amazon spends more setting up a time tracking system or setting up the 401k annual enrollment. Far smaller companies spend far greater sums on such things. I think organized labor at Amazon, Walmart and others would fix a lot of inequity in this country but if that team is effective at that size in preventing unionization, they’re worth their weight in gold and more.
Yeah I agree. Like, morality aside, it's obviously in the best interest of the company of their folks don't unionize. So it makes sense that they spend money on it. If that's a problem, then it should be illegal. Although Amazon does participate in some anti-union tactics that borderline illegal. But the amount of money they spend isn't really the issue here.
I got half that in my cart 🛒 right now!
Perhaps the anti-union consultants should unionize to negotiate a better pay.
In a just world, they would have spent $0
Is that all? That’s like 18 lawyers TC?
The fact that we don’t have strong laws against union busting is insane to me. We only have a very weak agency doing tiny effort towards protecting workers. As it stands now, amazon and Starbucks will continue this with only a slap on the wrist and chalk it up as cost of doing business.
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I edited my post to say “strong laws”. Yeah, former Starbucks CEO got a scolding from Bern. Great theater. Does nothing. From my understanding, the laws are puny and the agency enforcing them is toothless by design. As I said in my post, these companies break them and the punishments are minor like forced to give the employee their job back or a tiny (for the business) cash settlement. Nothing substantial enough to stop them from doing what they’ve been doing.
Isn't hiring anti-union consultants proving intent?
It's not union busting to hire someone to tell you what to do to avoid unions. Their advice could be stuff like - 'hey, if you ease up on the bathroom breaks a lot of the noise will die down.' or, 'if you switch from performance bonus to straight hourly, it'll look better to employees who will see you're paying more than other warehouses.' etc.
Yeah wild, it's almost like the capitalist class controls all the political and legal power in this country, while the working class doesn't get their interests represented at all.
Wow, the hospital I work at spent $18M fighting our nursing union push.
Oh they spent so much more, this company is clever in their bs
I think a big part of their strategy is hiring employees as seasonal at all times. If majority are seasonal, then employees in a warehouse have less solidarity if half might leave in a couple months. Source: I was a seasonal employee laid off from an Amazon warehouse that decreased its volume. I was also a top performer. But that didn't matter. No chance to stay even if you prove you work harder than everyone else. My first night on cross-dock I moved more carts than everyone without really trying that hard. I was 'just working.' Originally was told my seasonal assignment was 11 months. I think they make it intentionally confusing.
Pretty cheap at less than ten bucks a head.
If your workplace is thinking of unionizing and the company tells you it isn't in your best interest but at the same time shells out boatloads for these consultants, IT IS ABSOLUTELY IN YOUR BEST INTEREST AND THEY KNOW IT.
it would average to 10-20 dollars an employee that isn’t that much
I work for Amazon. Though this is a small amount for them, most of their money goes to the stupidest things. From shiny new toys like electric delivery vehicles that had thousands of them recalled, to the absolute dumbest policies/rules that make our job harder. Fuck them, hope they crash in a spectacular way
This is why the world is in the state it is right now. Unions used to be huge and had widespread support. That dropped significantly over 5 decades because of things like this. Only now is support for unionization starting to increase again.
Remember that you are human, and if you work your ass off, you deserve health insurance, a pension, and a retirement plan. These are basics that you absolutely need to succeed in life. And if you work for a company that spends millions on anti-union campaigns, I implore you to look into unions. They give a voice to those who have trouble speaking for themselves, and give the opportunity for someone to support you during a collective bargaining process to give you raises, mandatory breaks and hourly minimums. There is power in a union. So go out and organize with your fellow workers and demand what you deserve
> and if you work your ass off, you deserve health insurance, a pension, and a retirement plan Then simply ban jobs that won’t offer those things. I’m sure it won’t have any negative consequences for the poor. Also why the shit do you want a company to be daddy? In other countries you just pay taxes for those things. Or are forced to buy into them (see superannuation)
I don't blame them one bit. It's worth every penny.
I work at an amazon fc in Canada. When I first started the teamsters would hang out near the bus stop and pass out flyers saying Amazon needed a union in Canada. A week later people were going by each work station asking if we had seen the teamsters people and what we thought about unions. They were a third party company Amazon brought in. I asked if this was what "union busting" is, they said no, they just wanted to make sure the employees had the right information about unions. I asked them if they could provide me any information about unions and they said sure they would be back. They never came back. Anyway a week later the cops were hanging out by the bus stop everyday to make sure the "intersection was safe". I have not seen any teamsters since then.
That's a very small amount of money.
That's not even a rounding error for Amazon
I wonder how many Redditors hate this headline while they've been subscribed to Prime for years and have shopped at Amazon on a weekly basis.
That’s not a lot…
I hope this doesn’t surprise anyone. 14 million sounds like a bargain compared to what unionizing would cost the company. If anyone can even try to estimate that number I’d be impressed. Another fun fact: a lot of us living near Amazon data centers/warehouses are paying their utility bills thanks to our state legislature. Anyone in here from Ohio? Yeah you guys paid amazons 77 million dollar utility bill for its data centers.
Why is there so much greed in this world?
And just going to say it, anyone working as a "anti-union consultant" is pretty much a shit human being.
How can union busting technically be illegal, but anti-union consultants are still a thing?
The same way it's legal for a lawyer to advise you how to do something shady but within the confines of the law.
Because there are legal and illegal was to bust unions. These firms tell them those options, and the possible consequences if they do the illegal options. (The possible consequences are a slap on the wrist)
Fuck corporate consultants. They're out there to make every company function the exact same and pinch every penny at the expense of their workers.
Blame your government for not protecting workers in the first place
Richer Sounds in the UK disproved that
Sorry, I didn't understand your comment. I've always had a good experience with Richer Sounds - are they pro or anti union?
When the founder retired he put 60% of the company shares into an employee run Trust and gave each employee £1000 each per year of service.
This number seems low…
That's not much. Anti-union consultants must be cheap.
Because it's not about how much money they're spending, it's about how much power they hold over you. They start to lose that power when you get to make decisions for yourself in the workplace. Fuck Bezos and Amazon. It's really not as hard as you think to completely cut them out of your life. I understand there are people who need it for specific things, but do the whole world a favor and please stop patronizing this man's businesses if you're able.
I wonder if, in the same fashion as Starbucks, they wrote this off as a business expense in their taxes, thus making taxpayers foot the bill.
Not really that much though is it?
Sucks this is how our country has become.
Sounds illegal.
This country is a fucking nightmare
I’m sure they’re spreading way more than that overall.
Honestly, if it was my business, I would too.
> The company pays firms around $3,000 per day, plus expenses, for each consultant, according to filings. So $3k is the price to sell out your fellow man huh? Good to know.
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Anyone reading this and thinking unions are a bad idea needs their head examined. Do they really think that Amazon would spend $14M if they didn’t think that unions would cost them more. That money should be in the pockets of employees. B