Amazon Just Fired 2 Union Organizers Who Helped Win Amazon’s First Union | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Just Fired 2 Union Organizers Who Helped Win Amazon’s First Union

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26 pointsjmsflknr7 comments

I don't think I understand how the transition from non-union to union is supposed to work. Can't Amazon just fire everyone that doesn't show up to work and hire replacements? Or is that only possible in at-will employment states?

I assume Amazon will happily destroy as many lives as it needs to in order to avoid treating its employees well.

The obvious one would be to decide that that particular warehouse is no longer well situated, and shut it down completely and build a new warehouse down the road.

Sounds like they could have used a union.

They have a right to form a union. Amazon has the right to fire them at will. Unions create an antagonistic relationship between member employees and the company that employs them.

Retaliation for union organizing is not legal, actually. It is not lawful to terminate someone for exercising their rights to collective bargaining - even in at-will employment.

For example: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/us-labor-board-say....

And: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/your-right...

No, unions create an environment where there is less of a power imbalance.

The insane and rabid anti-union belligerence in US corporations is just as responsible for any antagonism. Other countries don’t have anything like the insane behaviour, because there isn’t one side willing to go to literally any lengths including shutting down sites to avoid working with unions.

A much better way to avoid unions is to not abuse your employees, that way they don’t feel that they’re being mistreated due to a power imbalance that might be fixed by a union.

More often than not a union forms when the relationship had become antagonistic already. Like, for instance, overly harsh discipline and strict break rules leading to employees feeling pressured to urinate in bottles.

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