When I left Amazon (as an SWE), with about 11mo of tenure, I was apparently at about median longevity. Yes, some of it is their growth, but a significant reason is also that they churn through people unnecessary. It's ridiculous to me that a big tech company treats people so terribly and continues to get away with it.
Its a common stall tactic for large businesses to fire leadership after a Union is formed. It means you cannot facilitate a good faith negotiation and places the union in a perpetual limbo that can last years.
I moved to Seattle from my hometown of Phoenix out of college for my "dream job" at Amazon. I started interviewing for other employment after just three months. I ended up quitting after eight months.
Amazon is a horrible place to work. Six years is a lifetime there.
Amazon's workforce has probably doubled twice in the last 6 years? So even without taking attrition into account (which is substantial in the warehouses), after 6 years you're in the 25% longest-tenured warehouse employees. With attrition I'd guess you're in the "top" 10%?
Well the line you quoted says company not industry. Ecommerce is a relatively young industry anyway. And Amazon has been around since what, 94? So 6 years is over 20% of the time Amazon has existed.
> I think it's sad that we have an industry, where someone with six years' experience, is considered a "veteran."
What does it take to be considered a "veteran" in the military?
> The term "veteran" means a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.
You know those help wanted commercials Amazon floods media with, "We pay $15 to start, blah, blah. Start a new career."
I just assumed they were always hiring because of consistent growth.
According to the guy (forget his name. Wears a gold chain.) representing the union; Amazon fires a lot of employees. Many for no reason.
(I once read a restaurant success book. Everything he recommended made sence, except one, and it does make sence, but it's weaselly.
His recommendation to restaurants was to fire all employees every six months. Turn over the semi-skilled completely. His reasoning was a new employee didn't complain, didn't steal (this was before companies had cams everywhere, gps tracking, and wrist movment counters), and worked harder.)
I believe this is Amazon strategy.
It's usually a bit harder to fire union workers for no reason.
Fire them before they can see the inequities in the company.
To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse. This could have been that the rsi injury complaints were true and unaddressed promptly. Or that the managers came off as cold in communications. Or 5 other things they could have done better.
Could be many reasons I guess. But maybe we should apply the Labor–Capital Razor: what signal does this send to the remaining managers? And what are they likely to do in response?
> To me a more reasonable explanation than any in the article is that after losing the vote, Amazon looked into the warehouse and decided part of the problem was that the managers were making the situation worse.
You’d think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the actual labor conditions driving the desire to unionize and not the failure of worksite union-busting efforts leading up to the vote.
I’m curious why this strikes you as a more reasonable explanation. It seems to me that you would need to make more assumptions to arrive at this conclusion than to arrive at other alternative conclusions.
> The managers were told they were being fired as part of an “organizational change,”
Nit: That language implies that they were laid off, not fired. The timing is a stupid move from Amazon, and these employees will likely be able to make a good case in court.
Being from Europe I have mixed feelings about unions here in the US...
On the one hand I think they are essential to tilt the uneven power dynamic between employer and employee towards the employee, and are thus dearly needed!
On the other hand, unions seem to often go overboard with impractical demands and are more political than in Europe, which damaged their reputation - I think - and contributed to their demise over the past few decades. Which is truly a shame!
(I'm reminded of alleged cases where only a union worker is allow to plug a power plug into an outlet at exorbitant prices. But this might a rumor too.)
When I worked at Boeing on the 757 gearbox design, at one point the box was put into a test rig to see how it would behave under load. I went out to the shop to in case any questions needed answering.
At one point, a bolt needed turning (don't recall why) and I stepped forward to do it. The shop union steward literally lunged in front of me, arms outstretched, to block me. He informed me that only a union mechanic can turn a bolt, and my job was to tell the mechanic (not the steward) to turn the bolt.
It was ludicrous. Evidently every job required 3 people - an engineer to tell the mechanic what to do, and a union steward to ensure the engineer didn't touch anything. Somehow this crazy system evolved.
I’m also a European migrant to America and the way I see it is that while we kept our unions in Europe, America haphazardly abandoned theirs. The only remaining unions are the ones with the strongest power structures and the chances of someone misusing their power in such a power structure is quite high.
In my opinion workers in America (my self included) desperately need to re-unionize. While I do admit that my working conditions are personally no worse then back home (I certainly get paid a lot more here; though I wouldn’t mind some health care) that is not the case most for American workers, including close friends and family.
Most Americans are lacking basic labor rights that we in Europe take for granted, such as paid sick leave, parental leave, paid holidays, higher overtime pay, guaranteed rest period, heck they don’t even get mandatory breaks and refreshments doing hard manual labor. This is something that collective bargaining, cross industry worker’s solidarity, picket lines, and strategic voting got them in the early last century but they have since lost.
In Europe we don’t need it as much because we have maintained our unions (and most—but not all—of these rights). In Europe the unions don’t need to be as political because the political victories from the prior years still stand. In America, not so much.
With that said, this doesn’t mean America should just take any union. If the union isn’t working—or worse it is actively harmful—it’s leadership needs to be replaced. If you don’t have a union you should try to get one, and you should try as you can to elect a good and competent leadership that will work improve labor conditions for all workers.
> unions seem to often go overboard with impractical demands and are more political than in Europe
Isn't that partially because the US such an insufficient level of social benefits from the state (healthcare, pensions, paid time off, etc.)? The unions wouldn't need to "go overboard" if an acceptable minimum level was guaranteed.
> only a union worker is allow to plug a power plug into an outlet at exorbitant prices.
So I have first experience in this working around and with IATSE members. So in the world of events and movie productions there are union and non-union productions. But it is 100% one or the other. For example you wouldn't be able to hire a union head electrician and a group of non-union journeymen. And there are quite a lot of places that will try to do just that. The power outlet seems innocuous on the surface, but it can escalate quickly. And that event will have your name on the credits so you are responsible for what happens.
I wouldn't anyone to plug just anything into my personal network either.
> tilt the uneven power dynamic between employer and employee towards the employee
With here
> unions seem to often go overboard with impractical demands and are more political than in Europe
Gives you Union Employee who grab the power from the actual owners of the company. The relation is now even worse: The Union leader have both power, and no skin in the game. At least the employers cared about the longevity of the company.
Unions don't solve the power dynamics. They just tilt it to a new side. Worse: They encourage the idea that force (strikes) can yield power/money; which is why countries with Unions degenerate.
Of course, someone here is going to get angry because of the "poor" employees and their work conditions.
I'm starting to think these Amazon's timing is intentional, they'll go to court, _and they don't care_; the cost is worth it to send the message.
There's also a good-faith possibility that the management of this warehouse was legitimately bad and promoted poor working conditions that lead to interest in the union.
I don't have any experience with sklled trades unions, but labor unions are almost universally despisedby anyone with first-hand knowledge. They are largely organizations of professional-class parasites subverting the class struggle and sabotaging worker morale for corporate benefit.
Isn't this a good thing? If the workers were fed up enough with conditions that they formed a union, doesn't that imply the managers were terrible? Shouldn't terrible managers be fired?
For example, my wife is a unionized nurse. The best thing that could happen at her work is for her manager to be fired. The union has no power in that.
I'm an engineering manager at a software company. I get performance reviews twice per year. It's well understood that if I'm doing a terrible job that I will be fired.
Counter-anecdotally, a friend of mine is one of the leaders of the Starbucks unionization efforts in Oregon, and they adore their store manager. The complaints that are driving those union efforts are the result of corporate policies and in no way related to specific stores.
I can't say anything well-informed about Amazon specifically, but mega-corps tend to build lots of layers of middle management, then apply high-pressure incentive structures from the top that force middle management to do things that are unpopular with lower-level employees. When these policies inevitably backfire, it's the middle-management that gets axed for it.
You don't need a terrible manager to have a union. A union isn't an attack, it's a bunch of peers caucusing. That's anti-union rhetoric, the idea that if there's good management you don't need a union, and that having a union is some kind of insult.
For real. Amazon's retail side is nothing but bad pr and other messy human entanglements. AWS is clean, profitable, and nearly ubiquitous. I definitely know which business I would rather be in
My guess is that they didn't fire them for "letting it happen" exactly. They probably fired them because the employees would view those managers as someone they recently defeated over a major issue. Which changes the power dynamic in a way that's distinct from the presence of the union itself. It's a weak attempt to get some of that back.
"letting it happen" could be many contexts as well, letting is happen could mean that the managers were soo terrible at their jobs that they allowed issues to fester to the point where the employees were disgruntles enough to vote in a union.
Happy employees do not vote to unionize. The "hot take" here is that Amazon management wanted to the managers to some how play hardball with the union, in my experience with issues like this normally management does the opposite and trys to "kill it with kindness" and attempts to stave off unionization by trying to resolve the complaints of the work force while balancing the needs of the company.
Sometimes the workforce is just too far apart from where management wants to be then I union is likely to form, but my guess is upper management at amazon feels these middle managers did not do enough to address the workforce's concerns.
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|3 years ago|reply
I think it's sad that we have an industry, where someone with six years' experience, is considered a "veteran."
But it sounds like Amazon is sending a message to managers of other warehouses, to go as low as possible, to fight unionization.
Expect things to get ugly.
[+] [-] mynameisash|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nimbius|3 years ago|reply
Its a common stall tactic for large businesses to fire leadership after a Union is formed. It means you cannot facilitate a good faith negotiation and places the union in a perpetual limbo that can last years.
[+] [-] AndyKelley|3 years ago|reply
Amazon is a horrible place to work. Six years is a lifetime there.
[+] [-] thinkling|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avgcorrection|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whycombagator|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thaumasiotes|3 years ago|reply
What does it take to be considered a "veteran" in the military?
> The term "veteran" means a person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.
( https://www.va.gov/OSDBU/docs/Determining-Veteran-Status.pdf )
> Most first-term enlistments require a commitment to four years of active duty and two years of inactive
( https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/making-commitment... )
A veteran is someone with experience. Why wouldn't six years of experience make you a "veteran"?
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] psychlops|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donthellbanme|3 years ago|reply
I just assumed they were always hiring because of consistent growth.
According to the guy (forget his name. Wears a gold chain.) representing the union; Amazon fires a lot of employees. Many for no reason.
(I once read a restaurant success book. Everything he recommended made sence, except one, and it does make sence, but it's weaselly.
His recommendation to restaurants was to fire all employees every six months. Turn over the semi-skilled completely. His reasoning was a new employee didn't complain, didn't steal (this was before companies had cams everywhere, gps tracking, and wrist movment counters), and worked harder.)
I believe this is Amazon strategy.
It's usually a bit harder to fire union workers for no reason.
Fire them before they can see the inequities in the company.
[+] [-] WalterBright|3 years ago|reply
On the other hand, it could be to not give the workers a reason to unionize.
[+] [-] joshe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avgcorrection|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|3 years ago|reply
You’d think that Amazon would be smart enough to look into the apparent problems before the vote, and make a show of addressing them to forestall it, if their concern was the actual labor conditions driving the desire to unionize and not the failure of worksite union-busting efforts leading up to the vote.
[+] [-] jollybean|3 years ago|reply
It's a signal to the managers of the other warehouses that if a union is formed on their watch, they are toast.
[+] [-] Zamaamiro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coliveira|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barbazoo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linuxhansl|3 years ago|reply
Nit: That language implies that they were laid off, not fired. The timing is a stupid move from Amazon, and these employees will likely be able to make a good case in court.
Being from Europe I have mixed feelings about unions here in the US...
On the one hand I think they are essential to tilt the uneven power dynamic between employer and employee towards the employee, and are thus dearly needed!
On the other hand, unions seem to often go overboard with impractical demands and are more political than in Europe, which damaged their reputation - I think - and contributed to their demise over the past few decades. Which is truly a shame! (I'm reminded of alleged cases where only a union worker is allow to plug a power plug into an outlet at exorbitant prices. But this might a rumor too.)
Any opinions here?
[+] [-] WalterBright|3 years ago|reply
At one point, a bolt needed turning (don't recall why) and I stepped forward to do it. The shop union steward literally lunged in front of me, arms outstretched, to block me. He informed me that only a union mechanic can turn a bolt, and my job was to tell the mechanic (not the steward) to turn the bolt.
It was ludicrous. Evidently every job required 3 people - an engineer to tell the mechanic what to do, and a union steward to ensure the engineer didn't touch anything. Somehow this crazy system evolved.
[+] [-] runarberg|3 years ago|reply
In my opinion workers in America (my self included) desperately need to re-unionize. While I do admit that my working conditions are personally no worse then back home (I certainly get paid a lot more here; though I wouldn’t mind some health care) that is not the case most for American workers, including close friends and family.
Most Americans are lacking basic labor rights that we in Europe take for granted, such as paid sick leave, parental leave, paid holidays, higher overtime pay, guaranteed rest period, heck they don’t even get mandatory breaks and refreshments doing hard manual labor. This is something that collective bargaining, cross industry worker’s solidarity, picket lines, and strategic voting got them in the early last century but they have since lost.
In Europe we don’t need it as much because we have maintained our unions (and most—but not all—of these rights). In Europe the unions don’t need to be as political because the political victories from the prior years still stand. In America, not so much.
With that said, this doesn’t mean America should just take any union. If the union isn’t working—or worse it is actively harmful—it’s leadership needs to be replaced. If you don’t have a union you should try to get one, and you should try as you can to elect a good and competent leadership that will work improve labor conditions for all workers.
[+] [-] SahAssar|3 years ago|reply
Isn't that partially because the US such an insufficient level of social benefits from the state (healthcare, pensions, paid time off, etc.)? The unions wouldn't need to "go overboard" if an acceptable minimum level was guaranteed.
[+] [-] yardie|3 years ago|reply
So I have first experience in this working around and with IATSE members. So in the world of events and movie productions there are union and non-union productions. But it is 100% one or the other. For example you wouldn't be able to hire a union head electrician and a group of non-union journeymen. And there are quite a lot of places that will try to do just that. The power outlet seems innocuous on the surface, but it can escalate quickly. And that event will have your name on the credits so you are responsible for what happens.
I wouldn't anyone to plug just anything into my personal network either.
[+] [-] csomar|3 years ago|reply
> tilt the uneven power dynamic between employer and employee towards the employee
With here
> unions seem to often go overboard with impractical demands and are more political than in Europe
Gives you Union Employee who grab the power from the actual owners of the company. The relation is now even worse: The Union leader have both power, and no skin in the game. At least the employers cared about the longevity of the company.
Unions don't solve the power dynamics. They just tilt it to a new side. Worse: They encourage the idea that force (strikes) can yield power/money; which is why countries with Unions degenerate.
Of course, someone here is going to get angry because of the "poor" employees and their work conditions.
[+] [-] dehrmann|3 years ago|reply
I'm starting to think these Amazon's timing is intentional, they'll go to court, _and they don't care_; the cost is worth it to send the message.
There's also a good-faith possibility that the management of this warehouse was legitimately bad and promoted poor working conditions that lead to interest in the union.
[+] [-] bontaq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] t-3|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkaler|3 years ago|reply
For example, my wife is a unionized nurse. The best thing that could happen at her work is for her manager to be fired. The union has no power in that.
I'm an engineering manager at a software company. I get performance reviews twice per year. It's well understood that if I'm doing a terrible job that I will be fired.
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|3 years ago|reply
I can't say anything well-informed about Amazon specifically, but mega-corps tend to build lots of layers of middle management, then apply high-pressure incentive structures from the top that force middle management to do things that are unpopular with lower-level employees. When these policies inevitably backfire, it's the middle-management that gets axed for it.
[+] [-] pessimizer|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vmception|3 years ago|reply
its mere coincidence that there is a correlation to workplace/compensation satisfaction and interest in a union.
[+] [-] GoodJokes|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] faangiq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] idiotsecant|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fyrn-|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sitkack|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] advisedwang|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...
[+] [-] someweirdperson|3 years ago|reply
Does Amazon manage to even treat senior managers badly?
[+] [-] tyingq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mola|3 years ago|reply
Disgusting anyway.
[+] [-] syshum|3 years ago|reply
Happy employees do not vote to unionize. The "hot take" here is that Amazon management wanted to the managers to some how play hardball with the union, in my experience with issues like this normally management does the opposite and trys to "kill it with kindness" and attempts to stave off unionization by trying to resolve the complaints of the work force while balancing the needs of the company.
Sometimes the workforce is just too far apart from where management wants to be then I union is likely to form, but my guess is upper management at amazon feels these middle managers did not do enough to address the workforce's concerns.
[+] [-] jeffrallen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GeorgeTirebiter|3 years ago|reply
These problems mentioned in this thread are due to the greed of Capitalists. Period.
Once the 'age of the Capitalist' is put behind us, and we move towards post-capitalism, then bs like OP mentions will be history.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] newaccount2021|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Dreako|3 years ago|reply