Unionizing Amazon warehouses was never going to be easy | Hacker News Reader

Unionizing Amazon warehouses was never going to be easy

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10 pointsluke2m4 comments

The UAW failed to unionize Volkswagen's Chattanooga plant despite neutrality on the part of the company. Unionization drives in the South routinely fail by 2:1 margins. As happened here. Implicitly blaming "dirty tricks" for the failure of unionization in the South is not intellectually honest.

These employers almost invariably pay more than the median wage in their region. $15/hour with benefits is pretty good money in Bessemer. It's fundamentally very difficult to organize workers if they feel they're being treated fairly under the existing regime.

Why are unionization drives located there instead of at plants where workers are less satisfied? Or do we just not hear about those?

Honestly I don't know. A warehouse associate at Amazon makes ~25% more than a stocker at Walmart does (though Amazon is probably a somewhat harder job). To me, knowing very little about the specifics of labor organizing, Walmart seems like a more logical target. Though that's been very unsuccessful historically. Maybe there's someone experienced in the field on here who could explain how they do target selection?

I know amazon is a very organized and advanced company, but you can be sure that one thing walmart has invested in and stays on the cutting edge of is union busting. I would wager they are operating on a different level than amzn when it comes to union busting and union avoidance.

Had a friend that was a butcher at walmart back when there was talk of unionizing. It was a walmart in a small town and the moment even a rumor of unions started spreading, walmart was flying in corporate jets full of lawyers and psychologists and educators to make sure that no one unionized.

I guess they decided the risk was too great so they shut down their meat packing section in every store across America. I believe to this day, there are no butchers in walmarts. They bring in the meat pre-cut and pre-packed. Probably by a wholly owned subsidiary that they can easily shut down if things ever go sideways.

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