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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday May 02 2020, @09:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the virtual-water-cooler dept.

Amazon locks down internal employee communications amid organizing efforts:

Amazon is reportedly (and suddenly) enforcing rules limiting employees' internal communication as workers, critical of the company's behavior, become increasingly outspoken and organized.

Internal listservs with more than 500 participants are now required to move to a moderated model where a manager must approve any content before its distribution, according to emails obtained by Recode.

Amazon had almost 800,000 total employees worldwide as of the end of 2019, a number that does not include the recent addition of another 175,000 temporary warehouse and delivery workers the company just hired to handle increased demand due to COVID-19. Of those 800,000, more than 500,000 are in the United States, and at least 275,000 of those are full-time employees.

Those hundreds of thousands of employees use thousands of internal listservs to talk among themselves about basically anything. That "anything," of late, includes many criticisms of Amazon. The company has faced both internal and external reproof[*] for its management of warehouses, where some employees have called for better cleaning, more protective equipment, and more paid time off as COVID-19 has spread through at least 50 US facilities.

[*] Malformed link in original; corrected here.


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:00PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:00PM (#989464)

    >> if the company treated its staff better, they wouldn't feel the need to organise "against" the company

    Bullshit... the most coddled employees of all, civil servants, have unions and continue to demand even more and even better benefits.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by helel on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:22PM (6 children)

    by helel (2949) on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:22PM (#989475)

    If we accept as true that public servants are the most coddled employees, how do you think they got there? Was it just the generosity of the government bureaucracy above them? Or, perhaps, was it something they did, some form of organized bargaining that gave them the power to demand better treatment than other, similarly placed, persons in other organizations?

    Unions only form as the result of abuse. Once present they don't just vanish once conditions improve. Nobody wants to let go of an advantage, even if they arguably no longer need it. I'm sure you don't empty out your bank account and burn the cash each month after paying bills and by the same token workers that have addressed the grievances that once forced them to unionize don't dismantle the union.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 02 2020, @09:50PM (5 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 02 2020, @09:50PM (#989595) Journal

      If we accept as true that public servants are the most coddled employees, how do you think they got there? Was it just the generosity of the government bureaucracy above them? Or, perhaps, was it something they did, some form of organized bargaining that gave them the power to demand better treatment than other, similarly placed, persons in other organizations?

      I think they got there through trading votes of their members for publicly funded swag.

      • (Score: 2) by helel on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:05PM (4 children)

        by helel (2949) on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:05PM (#989626)

        Like, individually? Each public servant called their Congress Critter and said "If you give me a 1 cent raise I'll vote for you" and next thing you know their raking in a decent hourly wage? Or do you envision some kind of organization here, like maybe they worked together in order to gain a better bargaining position?

        What about theater technicians? They have a pretty good thing going on. Did they trade votes to politicians to force broadway shows to pay them better?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:47PM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:47PM (#989638) Journal

          Like, individually? Each public servant called their Congress Critter and said "If you give me a 1 cent raise I'll vote for you" and next thing you know their raking in a decent hourly wage? Or do you envision some kind of organization here, like maybe they worked together in order to gain a better bargaining position?

          What makes their bargaining position any better than a business corporation doing the same thing?

          What about theater technicians? They have a pretty good thing going on. Did they trade votes to politicians to force broadway shows to pay them better?

          Are they public servants?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @02:42AM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @02:42AM (#989678)

            For what it's worth, I grew up in a Federal employee household and with that and the jobs I've had, I've been around the Fed Government for 40 years and I've never encountered any Federal union workers. The only ones I ever knew about were the Postal and air traffic controller unions, but only because of the high profile issues during the Reagan administration. I finally met a new colleague who came over from the Dept. of Commerce who told me that they had a union over there. Is that one of those drums that Fox News likes to beat? Because I have a brother-in-law who listens and watches all that crap and he was asking me questions and assuming that all the government was unionized.

            Only 30% of the Fed workforce [bls.gov] is represented by a union, which is about five times higher than it is in the private sector, but no where near a majority. And the vast majority of the members are in various law enforcement (prison guards, TSA, etc.) and the traditional trades. Your garden variety desk jockey civil servant is largely not in a union, and none of the "highly skilled" positions (researchers, scientists, engineers, etc.) are.

            But don't let that ruin a good story though.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 03 2020, @04:12AM (1 child)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 03 2020, @04:12AM (#989696) Journal

              Only 30% of the Fed workforce is represented by a union, which is about five times higher than it is in the private sector, but no where near a majority.

              A quarter [census.gov] of the Federal workforce is US military and can't legally [cornell.edu] be in a labor union.

              (b) It shall be unlawful for a member of the armed forces, knowing of the activities or objectives of a particular military labor organization—

              (1) to join or maintain membership in such organization; or

              (2) to attempt to enroll any other member of the armed forces as a member of such organization.

              Confirming a little over 30% [bls.gov] (see Table 3) of federal workforce is unionized. So roughly 40% of the portion of the US federal workforce that can be legally unionized actually is unionized. That's about the same as for local government (43% per the last link). Also good to know that there is precedent for prohibiting public unions at the federal level.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @08:18PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @08:18PM (#989887)

                The data on union membership are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 eligible households that obtains information on employment and unemployment among the nation's civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and over

                I know the President does this, and it doesn't make it right, but just because you don't understand the data doesn't mean you get to just make shit up. Plus, those numbers include people who aren't in a union but their job is covered by a union.

                So what is your point anyway? What are these big evil unions doing? Federal pay lags pretty significantly behind the private sector, so that isn't it. According to those stats, private sector unions only make up about 6% of the workforce. What significant effect do they have on ruining society in your eyes, particularly to garner the hundreds of hours of air time devoted by Fox News? You don't think it has ANYTHING to do with diverting attention from a tax cut that cost $2T by the time the coronavirus hit, where almost all of that money went to the rich and corporations? You could quituple every union salary and it isn't even a drop in the piss bucket that is that tax cut, remember that one where there were ABSOLUTELY NO deliberations in Congress about? So the unions are a shackle on the corporations and society, huh? Man you people are some kind of special.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:47PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @02:47PM (#989485)

    Bullshit... the most coddled employees of all, civil servants, have unions and continue to demand even more and even better benefits.

    Ask any employee working in government if they are coddled. Most government agencies are working on very old systems, and trying to keep the system running. Just ask the unemployment department New Jersey. Look at those brand new vehicles the Post Office drives every year. Been to the DMV lately? Government employees have to deal with disgruntled citizens all day. I don't envy them at all.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @03:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @03:09PM (#989498)

      Perhaps they should go work for Amazon?

    • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:15PM (1 child)

      by krishnoid (1156) on Saturday May 02 2020, @11:15PM (#989631)

      Just ask the unemployment department New Jersey.

      They'll tell you 2020 is the year COBOL makes its big comeback!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @01:54AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2020, @01:54AM (#990008)

        They'll tell you 2020 is the year COBOL makes its big comeback!

        2021 shall be the year of COBOL on the Desktop.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @08:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 03 2020, @08:51PM (#989897)

      Very true. I work, for now, in PA state government. We have a very right-wing legislature and talk radio landscape that relentlessly pursues cutting jobs, cutting benefits, privatizing services, stuffing the state with no-work/no-show "advisory" "jobs" for their special friends, and raising taxes on working people.

      Back in 2003, they stopped paying into the pension plan for the next 11 years. Individual taxes didn't go down, mostly because they wasted the "savings" that were dubious to begin with. Starting in 2007, we had a 6 year pay freeze for non-union, which due to games played in the 90s affected most of IT workers. Health insurance is no longer "employer" paid, although it never really was with the benefits being offset by lower pay. People that hate unions and working people and public work always "forget" to mention the lower pay when they shriek about "Cadillac" benefits. Gee, I wonder why. Now we're paying a large percentage of worse but more expensive benefits. They also "forget" that government furloughed many people in the wake of 2008 because it's so much easier to pretend we didn't share the rest of the state's pain. They also forget that the pension isn't free either, as employees pay over 7% of their lower pay into it. Gee, I wonder why. And the pension by and large is on its way the dustbin. See, when the market was up, Republicans stole the money that would've been earmarked for pension contributions. When the market went down in 2008, the shortfall was everybody's fault but theirs. great at the borrowing and spending part but not so much at paying anything back. Surprise. So now to "solve" this, the pension plan is basically hybrid system, part 401K and part pension. But the 401K match is pitiful and nobody believes a government that didn't honor a constitutional mandate to fund the pension will bat an eye at dumping the 401K (let alone the match) when corporations need another handout. The pay freeze was lifted for a few years, but pay never recovered, so now there's a "shortage" of qualified people (we don't even have a civil service test anymore), which has enabled them to pump in illiterate Hindus by the boatload. That, in turn, has created over $1B in IT fuckups over the last decade. IBM got $180M for an unemployment system that never worked, Accenture got $250M for a tax system overhaul that never worked, the $800M police state radio system still isn't operational, licensing and elections are in shambles, and they're scrambling to offshore more and more to chase the phantom "savings" of these other offshore fuckups like a lunatic that keeps doing the same thing hoping for a different result. All the right wing does is try to dismantle and privatize stuff that brings in money like the liquor stores and Turnpike even as we're hemorrhaging money from every right wing fuckup we're endured and continue to endure. "Do more with less" they say as they do less with more.

      So for all that think government jobs are so great, I invite you to come get one for yourself or jump off a fucking cliff.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2020, @07:41PM (#989568)

    Unions for civil servants are toothless.