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Comment by sn_master | Hacker News Reader

Disclaimer: First amendment people, I am not saying my opinion is correct, but this is just how I personally feel.

If this will prevent Amazon from becoming overly-political like Google, I am not going to feel too bad about it. They can still chat using Chime/Slack, just don't have full access to emails/phones of everyone in the company. And it doesn't look like it will impact the unionization efforts either, as employees within the same facility can still chat and communicate normally within themselves.

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Of course it will affect unionization, that's the #1 sought effect - to silo unionization efforts into individual locations and atomize them.

As for companies becoming "overly political", mega corporations will ALWAYS get involved in politics. The question is whether it's public or in the shadows. The other side is corporations trying to PR their way out of abuses so they can keep a good image and lessen progressive opposition.

Silos are standard in all big organizations, full access is/was the exception in Amazon. Why should it be the corporation's duty to make it easier for employees to organization a union if it's not something that the executives deemed in the best interest of the corporation?

(I am not anti-union per-se at all, you can silence me by downvoting but you'll also be creating your own echo chamber in the process)

> Silos are standard in all big organizations, full access is/was the exception in Amazon. Why should it be the corporation's duty to make it easier for employees to organization a union if it's not something that the executives deemed in the best interest of the corporation?

Nobody's forcing Amazon to not be siloed, but now they are losing a competitive advantage, because this disrupts communication within the company. There's a reason for why its leadership made a conscious choice to not be a siloed firm - and its because silos are less efficient.

It's much like a repressive society that shuts down the internet, because people are using it to organize against the regime. Sure, it's free to do so, but this has negative consequences for its ability to conduct bureaucratic and economic activity.

The difference between a government and Amazon is that Amazon does not have any control over non-work communication channels their employees use - so this move isn't even going to help much.

> now they are losing a competitive advantage

I don't think they're doing anything out of ideological reasons. Their bonuses and compensation is always tied to their competitive performance. I am sure the higher-ups weighed the potential loss of competitive advantage when making the decision, and given their successful track record, I am inclined to believe it's not going to be as bad as the article is portraying it.

> I am sure the higher-ups weighed the potential loss of competitive advantage when making the decision, and given their successful track record, I am inclined to believe it's not going to be as bad as the article is portraying it.

I'm sure they haven't - and are just reacting in the way that any C-suite American executive reacts to a union forming in their company - by making every attempt, sensible or senseless, to suppress it.

They're the business owners and responsible for their business decisions. I don't think we have the decades of experience they have managing trillion-dollar organizations.

This is the first time I am seeing that many people claiming they're upset because Amazon made a decision they think is bad for its own business.

Senior Executives aren’t the Jedi council or whatever. Someone probably discovered somebody dumping the GAL and the big shots made an emotional decision.

Any intern can still dump the GAL, they only removed access for warehouse workers, not for software engineers.

The problem is lying about why a company is taking an action. A lie by omission is still a lie. How do you "Earn Trust" with your employees by taking this action and meeting their concerns with silence? If you think unions are going to be the death of your company then make your case and state when a change is intended to inhibit union organizing. Thats not whats happening according to the article. Is lying standard in all big organizations, and more importantly should it be?

I guess lying is becoming more of a standard practice at Amazon, https://theintercept.com/2021/03/25/amazon-drivers-pee-bottl...

I think the major concern is the motivation behind the change. From the report HR's response to pushback on this change was basically "we don't care what this breaks deal with it, we are not reverting, implement a workaroud, end of discussion". This seems highly unusual for what seems essentially to be a technical change. For starters, why is HR involved at all in this change?

I don't think anyone is claiming this is a pure technical change, not even the HR. The response tone is expected and must have been pre-approved before the change was put in place.

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