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Comment by testbot123 | Hacker News Reader

That's not how it works. Scabs who break the line are harming workers' ability to organize and demand fair working conditions. The onus is on the scab to find employment elsewhere, because by crossing the line they're not only harming the people striking, but the workers they represent as a class, including the scab. Don't cross picket lines, and don't let people cross picket lines – you're undermining human beings fighting for humane treatment – you included.

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You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you withdraw your labor from an employer, and can’t act as though you have some ongoing exclusive right to provide that labor. By the same logic you provided, the organizers are harming the class of all people willing to take the employment on offer. When seeking employment, you have no onus at all to first check with the class of all potential candidates for that role to determine whether they all consider the tabled offer to be fair. The only judgement you have to make is whether you do.

You're saying that creating and enforcing non-competes that not all parties are in a position to agree fairly upon is unethical?

I don't like non-competes at all, but I don't see how my comment refers to them.

The workers would be creating a non compete for their own positions, and enforcing it against amazon hiring the scabs. Their right to do so is questionable, just as normal non-competes are, but we'll see how legal judgement works out I suppose.

This is all very interesting stuff. Exciting time to be alive.

I guess in your hypothetical alternative reality where Amazon had signed such an agreement, that would be a relevant question. In this one however, it is not.

The picketers and strikers are actually helping the scabs, when the strike succeeds the scabs are free to apply for work at a higher wage. The absence of unions and their successful strike is literally the reason the wage gap is so large. Stopping access of scabs is even more critical in a low skill job such as picking items.

Using force and intimidation to coerce people into joining an organisation that gets to take part of their income, and dictate the terms of their employment is for their own benefit? How exactly is this any different from the classic protection racket? I'm not sure the people who were unemployed before a strike, and then still unemployed after it are going to buy into how beneficial this is for them. Nor am I convinced that the people who were happy with their working conditions, and were forced to take unpaid leave by the union that they did not join are going to see it that way either.

A lot of the tyranny that we have seen through our history on this planet has started off with somebody deciding that they know what's good for others better than they do for themselves, so they'd just be better off if you could make their decisions for them. The truth is that you don't get to make those decisions for other people, regardless of how important their compliance is to your own plans.

Unions are run like a representative democracy. The comparison with protection rackets is asinine.

It sounds like you have zero experience with unions.

No, that is how it works.

You can't stop people from seeking employment. Period. You don't have that right. It's crazy to me that I even have to type these words out. You think you have power by withdrawing your labor but you don't for the exact reason you're arbitrarily trying to forbid -- someone else will take your job because there are far more people willing to do it than there is demand for.

The onus is on you to find a job where your skills meet the price you're willing to take. Others will do the same, even if it means sidestepping you yelling across the street from the warehouse.

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