I thought this was an interesting retrospective, given that the NYT went and got some actual responses from the many workers who voted "No". There's no way around facing the fact that an...
I thought this was an interesting retrospective, given that the NYT went and got some actual responses from the many workers who voted "No". There's no way around facing the fact that an absolutely overwhelming amount of the people who voted voted for "No" - when you consider all the people who didn't vote, it's even worse.
To have a better shot in the future, you have to listen and examine why people thought as they did; simply calling them idiots, as is common on every Reddit thread on the topic, is not, in my opinion, productive, or respectful of the fact that these are, in fact, autonomous people voting on their own future.
When Graham Brooks received his ballot in early February, asking whether he wanted to form a union at the Amazon warehouse in Alabama where he works, he did not hesitate. He marked the NO box, and mailed the ballot in.
After almost six years of working as a reporter at nearby newspapers, Mr. Brooks, 29, makes about $1.55 more an hour at Amazon, and is optimistic he can move up.
“I personally didn’t see the need for a union,” he said. “If I was being treated differently, I may have voted differently.”
...
For some workers at the warehouse, like Mr. Brooks, the minimum wage of $15 an hour is more than they made in previous jobs and provided a powerful incentive to side with the company. Amazon’s health insurance, which kicks in on the first day of employment, also encouraged loyalty, workers said.
Carla Johnson, 44, said she had learned she had brain cancer just a few months after starting work last year at the warehouse, which is in Bessemer, Ala. Amazon’s health care covered her treatment.
“I was able to come in Day 1 with benefits, and that could have possibly made the difference in life or death,” Ms. Johnson said at a press event that Amazon organized after the vote.
...
Patricia Rivera, who worked at the Bessemer warehouse from September until January, said many of her co-workers in their 20s or younger had opposed the union because they felt pressured by Amazon’s anti-union campaign and felt that the wages and benefits were solid.
...
When a union representative called her about the vote, Ms. Johnson said, he couldn’t answer a pointed question about what the union could promise to deliver.
“He hung up on me,” she said. “If you try to sell me something, I need you to be able to sell that product.”
...
Danny Eafford, 59, said he had taken every opportunity to tell co-workers at the warehouse that he strongly opposed the union, arguing that it wouldn’t improve their situation. He said he had told colleagues about how a union let him down when he lost a job years ago at the Postal Service.
...
In talking with congregants, Mr. Matthews said, he has come to believe that workers were too scared to push for more and risk what they have.
“You don’t want to turn over the proverbial apple cart because those apples are sweet — larger than the apples I had before — so you don’t mess with it,” he said.
...
He pointed to the high rate of turnover among employees, estimating that up to 25 percent of Amazon workers who would have been eligible to vote in early January had left by the end of voting in late March — potentially more than the company’s entire margin of victory. Mr. Appelbaum surmised that people who had left would have been more likely to support the union because they were typically less satisfied with their jobs.
tl;dr, reasons included
Workers considered pay and benefits good, did not want to rock the boat
Poor messaging on the Union's side
Bad prior experience with unions
High turnover leading to disgruntled workers leaving rather, causing the remaining unionization voters to self select for those who are not disgruntled.
Not mentioned in the article, but I also suspect that few people considered Amazon to be a "career", just a short time gig - as such, you have less incentive to try and build a stable career for yourself with collective bargaining.
It's kind of a catch 22 there isn't it? If the conditions, pay, and healthcare are so great (as we are frequently told they are), why is Amazon churning over 25% of it's workforce every quarter,...
Not mentioned in the article, but I also suspect that few people considered Amazon to be a "career", just a short time gig - as such, you have less incentive to try and build a stable career for yourself with collective bargaining.
It's kind of a catch 22 there isn't it? If the conditions, pay, and healthcare are so great (as we are frequently told they are), why is Amazon churning over 25% of it's workforce every quarter, and not full of people looking to build long-term careers? Plenty of other blue-collar jobs have lifers.
It's almost as if the horrible conditions don't make up for the pay and the healthcare (especially since Amazon works really hard to not pay workman's comp) aggregate over a few months.
It's a very compelling argument. I think the counter argument from unions should something along the lines of:
If you're a $15/hour Amazon employee in Bessemer, you have a very strong incentive not to rock the boat,
It's a very compelling argument. I think the counter argument from unions should something along the lines of:
Do you like your present pay+benefits? Great, we'll fight to make sure that they never take it away from you. Because as soon as they can, they will. [citations needed]
The Mr.Brooks example strikes me as incredibly odd. So...for $60 more a week, Mr.Brooks has traded a comfortable reporting position for one of the most strenuous, dangerous warehouse jobs on the...
The Mr.Brooks example strikes me as incredibly odd.
After almost six years of working as a reporter at nearby newspapers, Mr. Brooks, 29, makes about $1.55 more an hour at Amazon, and is optimistic he can move up.
I'd only work for Amazon, particularly in the warehouse, if I was desperate. There's many other less-dangerous warehouse jobs available around the same pay grade.
Edit: I can't believe I missed this on my first pass:
Mr. Brooks and others said they wished their 10-hour shift had a break period longer than 30 minutes because in the vast warehouse, they can spend almost half their break just walking to and from the lunchroom.
Gotcha. 30 min break for a 10 hour shift, but yea Amazon is treating you just fine.
I obviously don't know Mr. Brooks, but keep in mind that there are a lot of Americans for whom the decision of whether to pay rent or get their life-saving meds is a monthly struggle because they...
I obviously don't know Mr. Brooks, but keep in mind that there are a lot of Americans for whom the decision of whether to pay rent or get their life-saving meds is a monthly struggle because they can't afford both. $60/week is nothing to me, but if I had to make that decision each month, another $240/month might be worth the extra hours and shitty conditions.
I think you're reading more into this than we can know from some brief snippets in a newspaper article. We can't ask him how "comfortable" his reporting position was. Or maybe someone could? He's...
I think you're reading more into this than we can know from some brief snippets in a newspaper article. We can't ask him how "comfortable" his reporting position was.
No, this isn’t how representative democracy works. The leadership represents the voters and they may or may not do a good job of that. When there is disagreement, there are always going to be...
No, this isn’t how representative democracy works. The leadership represents the voters and they may or may not do a good job of that. When there is disagreement, there are always going to be people on the losing side of the vote, so it’s impossible to satisfy everyone.
Yeah, let me tell you I support unions but a few years ago Teamsters leadership passed our negotiated contract despite overwhelming votes of “no” on the terms the company presented us with....
Yeah, let me tell you I support unions but a few years ago Teamsters leadership passed our negotiated contract despite overwhelming votes of “no” on the terms the company presented us with. Leadership set the contract anyway citing a rule that not enough people voted (only 40% of members did) so they could default to passing it on their own judgement.
Most workers are temporary part-timers so of course they never vote. Humanity is just crooked no matter what mitigating methods we try to circumvent it. Their only defense was “we got more out of the good than bad of the contract” even though we all disagreed ultimately...why is there any bad at all?
I just don’t get it, why do workers have to take any concessions at all just so a company (a $64 billion profit company) can squeeze a little more blood from the stone?
This is one fact of life with which unions have consistently failed to adapt. This, and sub-sub-contracting bluring the lines about who exactly is one's employer. − because the unions' playbook,...
Most workers are temporary part-timers so of course they never vote.
This is one fact of life with which unions have consistently failed to adapt. This, and sub-sub-contracting bluring the lines about who exactly is one's employer.
why do workers have to take any concessions at all
− because the unions' playbook, and the labour laws, did not quite keep up with how work itself has changed over the last decades
− because there is always room for more automation
− because a giant corporation can always re-localize the positions in another state or another continent
− because it has been increasingly difficult to understand "how it's made" and "hot it works", that is, for the consumer to see the labour conditions behind a product. I'd guess that not many readers of The New York Times spend many hours on a factory floor, nor many Tildesers.
− because, as the 2009 crisis forcefully exemplified, it's become almost impossible for almost anybody to actually understand how "The Markets" work.
Oh it is, things got worse to be sure but I still pay $0 for extremely good health insurance that’s on another planet compared to most people I know. Management can’t fuck with us much, breaks are...
Oh it is, things got worse to be sure but I still pay $0 for extremely good health insurance that’s on another planet compared to most people I know.
Management can’t fuck with us much, breaks are mandatory, ect. Without the union we’d be...in a worse place still. Still hurts though that this contract got passed over our heads with such major concessions.
I'm not here to say unions are bad; I'm just pointing out faulty logic. This is pretending there aren't any boundaries or distinctions between yourself and a group. But any time there's a group,...
I'm not here to say unions are bad; I'm just pointing out faulty logic.
“I don’t trust unions to represent my interests” is the same as “I don’t trust myself to represent my interests”.
This is pretending there aren't any boundaries or distinctions between yourself and a group. But any time there's a group, there's politics and there can be disagreement. No formal voting is needed. Even two people who know each other well and decide to form a partnership can disagree about what to do; it happens in business all the time.
This doesn't mean unions are necessarily worse than any other group, but you seem to want to prove that unions are automatically good and it doesn't matter who you partner with.
I would say it’s more like not wanting to buy a condo in a certain area because you’ve heard horror stories about people getting into disputes with the local condo board. And your argument is, you...
I would say it’s more like not wanting to buy a condo in a certain area because you’ve heard horror stories about people getting into disputes with the local condo board. And your argument is, you could just elect someone else. But it’s not always that easy, and maybe you don’t want the political fight, so you might avoid communities that look overly political (in a way you don’t like) instead of trying to change them.
There are people who don’t like politics and would rather have less of it in their lives. You can’t avoid it altogether, but if they successfully avoid some disputes, are they wrong?
Another example is that there are large communities that never incorporated as a city so they are just part of the county. In the case of Castro Valley they voted down incorporation twice. (I don’t know why they did; the article doesn’t seem to be online.)
So this idea of voting against government? Well, it happens. Like with any other organization, the case has to be made for it.
it seems like it varies, but some people quoted are somewhere in the middle? The first person quoted says he would be open to a union under different circumstances: This one blames this specific...
it seems like it varies, but some people quoted are somewhere in the middle? The first person quoted says he would be open to a union under different circumstances:
“I personally didn’t see the need for a union,” he said. “If I was being treated differently, I may have voted differently.”
This one blames this specific union, not for being inherently bad, but for not selling themselves:
When a union representative called her about the vote, Ms. Johnson said, he couldn’t answer a pointed question about what the union could promise to deliver.
“He hung up on me,” she said. “If you try to sell me something, I need you to be able to sell that product.”
This one really does seem to be against unions as a concept since it’s based on experience with a different union:
Danny Eafford, 59, said he had taken every opportunity to tell co-workers at the warehouse that he strongly opposed the union, arguing that it wouldn’t improve their situation. He said he had told colleagues about how a union let him down when he lost a job years ago at the Postal Service.
I’m not sure what “no skepticism at least in principle” amounts to since skepticism is usually based on ideas about how things work out in practice. People working for the same company do have...
I’m not sure what “no skepticism at least in principle” amounts to since skepticism is usually based on ideas about how things work out in practice.
People working for the same company do have some interests aligned, but it’s also easy to think of ways they can disagree. You could, for example, think some other worker is a dangerous idiot, or maybe they are racist or harass people, or they don’t pull their weight, or maybe you’d normally get along but have different ideas about strategy and whether to accept the status quo or try hard for more on principle.
It seems like unity among workers is no more guaranteed than unity among students who go to the same school? It does happen but it takes effort. A common enemy will certainly help, but not everyone sees management as the enemy.
There is plenty of skepticism of independence movements too, so I'm not sure the analogy to creating a new nation is working in your favor? The track record for revolution is mixed. It's true that...
There is plenty of skepticism of independence movements too, so I'm not sure the analogy to creating a new nation is working in your favor? The track record for revolution is mixed. It's true that just about everyone lives in some nation or other, and anarchy isn't very popular. But some nations have horrible governments that are worse than anarchy.
Unlike with citizenship, some people are in unions and others aren't. Unionized workers are often but not always better off. So it seems like the facts point towards not unionizing being a viable choice that should be considered, whatever your theory might say.
You are right, I haven't been very careful about describing your position and I'll try to do better. (I've been more concerned with trying to explain why I'm not convinced.) So, to say a little...
You are right, I haven't been very careful about describing your position and I'll try to do better. (I've been more concerned with trying to explain why I'm not convinced.)
So, to say a little more about what I think I understand: I agree that people take it for granted that they should live in a nation, but they don't take it for granted that they should be in a union. By analogy, I can also imagine a different world where every worker is in a union, we take it for granted that workers always have unions, and not being in a union is considered weird and possibly dangerous. For storytelling, it's not that much of a reach. I think it would work fine in speculative fiction.
However, this is based on an analogy between unions and nations. The problem with analogies is that they are comparing things that are alike in some ways and different in others. It's not really worth getting into which ways they are similar versus different, or whether the similarities or differences are more important. Analogies can be useful for getting a feel for a certain way of thinking, but they aren't very good at convincing people who aren't already convinced.
Also, there are many possible analogies. Instead comparing unions with nations, we could compare them with other forms of government like cities, homeowner's associations, or school districts, or to voluntary associations like clubs. So there's the question of whether the union <-> nation analogy is better than some other one, and that's not something we can settle using logic because analogies aren't logical arguments. Which analogies you use is a matter of taste.
I literally don't have a theory
Okay, let's say an argument. It seems like you're making an argument that other people are being illogical and inconsistent? That's a fairly strong claim.
This is not a theory: people are more skeptical of unions than they are of nation states and that is simply illogical. I mean, I really just want people to be consistent.
So here, "people are more skeptical of unions than they are of nation states" is something that's easy to agree on. But when you say it's illogical, I don't think that follows from making an analogy. It's not inconsistent for someone else to make distinctions between things that are different, if they think the differences are important.
It's not wrong to like the nation <-> union analogy and share it if it works for you, but it doesn't mean it's inconsistent to disagree.
(It's actually really difficult to prove anything using logical arguments, outside of math.)
Unions have many of the same difficulties that democratic states have: it is much harder to stop a problematic government or leadership than simply being engaged, especially if the systems of...
All I am saying is that all it takes to stop a shitty union is you and your coworkers actually being engaged with the activities of the union...
Unions have many of the same difficulties that democratic states have: it is much harder to stop a problematic government or leadership than simply being engaged, especially if the systems of voting and representation are antiquated and fundamentally flawed, like FPTP.
So Amazon is using AWS to subsidise wages? Surely that’s a great thing, workers are being paid more. I don’t think this is correct anyway, Amazon’s US e-commerce business does make a profit.
So Amazon is using AWS to subsidise wages? Surely that’s a great thing, workers are being paid more.
I don’t think this is correct anyway, Amazon’s US e-commerce business does make a profit.
That really just sounds like Amazon was allowed to engage in some not-so-subtle threats and propaganda about unions. "It would be a shame if we took that pay and healthcare away if you unionized."
Often, in explaining their position, they echoed the arguments that Amazon had made in mandatory meetings, where it stressed its pay, raised doubts about what a union could guarantee and said benefits could be reduced if workers unionized.
That really just sounds like Amazon was allowed to engage in some not-so-subtle threats and propaganda about unions. "It would be a shame if we took that pay and healthcare away if you unionized."
Related coverage from the BBC. It's well written - factual without veering into 'enlightened centrism' territory. ... It also covers Carla Johnson's story, mentioned in the NYT article as well -...
Related coverage from the BBC. It's well written - factual without veering into 'enlightened centrism' territory.
"You may end up with more, the same, or less" is the message from a union info-website set up by Amazon.
In practice, it would be highly unusual for a union to negotiate away existing perks - and of course it would be Amazon taking away the benefits.
...
Critics say that much of Amazon's narrative was based around the idea that workers would have to pay the union money. However, Alabama is a Right To Work state. No worker has to pay subs. So did Amazon break the law in their messaging?
"It's not clear" says Prof John Logan, a labour expert at San Francisco State University.
"They are very skilled in operating in the grey areas, that's why they're so effective. You know some of what they say is clearly legal. Other things are kind of pushing the boundaries of the law - and the weakness of the law."
It also covers Carla Johnson's story, mentioned in the NYT article as well - the logic of "this company didn't literally leave me to die of cancer where others would have done, so I won't risk rocking the boat" is one of the most dystopian things I have ever heard. Even if there are legitimate arguments to be made about the faults with unions, that really doesn't strike me as one of them.
Here's an interesting article that goes into a bit more depth about what happened: Flawed Approach Sunk Amazon Union Drive, But Birthed National Movement This looks like a good blog to subscribe...
Here's an interesting article that goes into a bit more depth about what happened:
In our on-camera interviews with workers, we discovered most workers held similar views to Beringer. It wasn’t that they hated unions, who were heavily against them, but that they didn’t know much about unions and didn’t feel they could trust them.
In winning union elections, the election feels like more of a formality since the organizing committee has already been acting as a union, winning campaigns in the workplace to change things and standing up for co-workers facing unfair disciplining.
Then, when the union election comes, workers feel like they already know the union and are a part of it. In massive facilities with thousands of workers like Amazon, the process of building a strong organizing committee and building trust in the organizing committee through concerted action can sometimes take years.
RWDSU had only started its campaign last June when outrage over unsafe working conditions during COVID was raw. While they had an outpouring of initial momentum and interest, they never developed a strong organizing committee that took the time to build trust through shop-floor action and organizing against the boss.
Instead, they rushed a union election or did what is known in union organizing as “hot shopping,” where union organizers hope to take advantage of an outburst of anger in a facility over things such as poor COVID working conditions to force and win and a quick union election.
However, their initial union enthusiasm support collapsed under the weight of a sophisticated anti-union campaign by Amazon that combined threats of job loss with promises of improvement if workers rejected the union. Many workers in interviews that voted against the union, admitted that they knew little about unions. This allowed the company through anti-union meetings to create fear over the change that unions could bring, warning workers that their wages may actually decrease under a contract or worse that their facility may close.
This looks like a good blog to subscribe to if you're interested in labor issues.
I thought this was an interesting retrospective, given that the NYT went and got some actual responses from the many workers who voted "No". There's no way around facing the fact that an absolutely overwhelming amount of the people who voted voted for "No" - when you consider all the people who didn't vote, it's even worse.
To have a better shot in the future, you have to listen and examine why people thought as they did; simply calling them idiots, as is common on every Reddit thread on the topic, is not, in my opinion, productive, or respectful of the fact that these are, in fact, autonomous people voting on their own future.
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tl;dr, reasons included
Workers considered pay and benefits good, did not want to rock the boat
Poor messaging on the Union's side
Bad prior experience with unions
High turnover leading to disgruntled workers leaving rather, causing the remaining unionization voters to self select for those who are not disgruntled.
Not mentioned in the article, but I also suspect that few people considered Amazon to be a "career", just a short time gig - as such, you have less incentive to try and build a stable career for yourself with collective bargaining.
It's kind of a catch 22 there isn't it? If the conditions, pay, and healthcare are so great (as we are frequently told they are), why is Amazon churning over 25% of it's workforce every quarter, and not full of people looking to build long-term careers? Plenty of other blue-collar jobs have lifers.
It's almost as if the horrible conditions don't make up for the pay and the healthcare (especially since Amazon works really hard to not pay workman's comp) aggregate over a few months.
It's a very compelling argument. I think the counter argument from unions should something along the lines of:
The Mr.Brooks example strikes me as incredibly odd.
So...for $60 more a week, Mr.Brooks has traded a comfortable reporting position for one of the most strenuous, dangerous warehouse jobs on the planet. Amazon is also especially notorious for avoiding paying workers comp.
I'd only work for Amazon, particularly in the warehouse, if I was desperate. There's many other less-dangerous warehouse jobs available around the same pay grade.
Edit: I can't believe I missed this on my first pass:
Gotcha. 30 min break for a 10 hour shift, but yea Amazon is treating you just fine.
I obviously don't know Mr. Brooks, but keep in mind that there are a lot of Americans for whom the decision of whether to pay rent or get their life-saving meds is a monthly struggle because they can't afford both. $60/week is nothing to me, but if I had to make that decision each month, another $240/month might be worth the extra hours and shitty conditions.
I think you're reading more into this than we can know from some brief snippets in a newspaper article. We can't ask him how "comfortable" his reporting position was.
Or maybe someone could? He's on LinkedIn.
No, this isn’t how representative democracy works. The leadership represents the voters and they may or may not do a good job of that. When there is disagreement, there are always going to be people on the losing side of the vote, so it’s impossible to satisfy everyone.
Yeah, let me tell you I support unions but a few years ago Teamsters leadership passed our negotiated contract despite overwhelming votes of “no” on the terms the company presented us with. Leadership set the contract anyway citing a rule that not enough people voted (only 40% of members did) so they could default to passing it on their own judgement.
Most workers are temporary part-timers so of course they never vote. Humanity is just crooked no matter what mitigating methods we try to circumvent it. Their only defense was “we got more out of the good than bad of the contract” even though we all disagreed ultimately...why is there any bad at all?
I just don’t get it, why do workers have to take any concessions at all just so a company (a $64 billion profit company) can squeeze a little more blood from the stone?
This is one fact of life with which unions have consistently failed to adapt. This, and sub-sub-contracting bluring the lines about who exactly is one's employer.
− because the unions' playbook, and the labour laws, did not quite keep up with how work itself has changed over the last decades
− because there is always room for more automation
− because a giant corporation can always re-localize the positions in another state or another continent
− because it has been increasingly difficult to understand "how it's made" and "hot it works", that is, for the consumer to see the labour conditions behind a product. I'd guess that not many readers of The New York Times spend many hours on a factory floor, nor many Tildesers.
− because, as the 2009 crisis forcefully exemplified, it's become almost impossible for almost anybody to actually understand how "The Markets" work.
Oh it is, things got worse to be sure but I still pay $0 for extremely good health insurance that’s on another planet compared to most people I know.
Management can’t fuck with us much, breaks are mandatory, ect. Without the union we’d be...in a worse place still. Still hurts though that this contract got passed over our heads with such major concessions.
I'm not here to say unions are bad; I'm just pointing out faulty logic.
This is pretending there aren't any boundaries or distinctions between yourself and a group. But any time there's a group, there's politics and there can be disagreement. No formal voting is needed. Even two people who know each other well and decide to form a partnership can disagree about what to do; it happens in business all the time.
This doesn't mean unions are necessarily worse than any other group, but you seem to want to prove that unions are automatically good and it doesn't matter who you partner with.
I would say it’s more like not wanting to buy a condo in a certain area because you’ve heard horror stories about people getting into disputes with the local condo board. And your argument is, you could just elect someone else. But it’s not always that easy, and maybe you don’t want the political fight, so you might avoid communities that look overly political (in a way you don’t like) instead of trying to change them.
There are people who don’t like politics and would rather have less of it in their lives. You can’t avoid it altogether, but if they successfully avoid some disputes, are they wrong?
Another example is that there are large communities that never incorporated as a city so they are just part of the county. In the case of Castro Valley they voted down incorporation twice. (I don’t know why they did; the article doesn’t seem to be online.)
So this idea of voting against government? Well, it happens. Like with any other organization, the case has to be made for it.
it seems like it varies, but some people quoted are somewhere in the middle? The first person quoted says he would be open to a union under different circumstances:
This one blames this specific union, not for being inherently bad, but for not selling themselves:
This one really does seem to be against unions as a concept since it’s based on experience with a different union:
I’m not sure what “no skepticism at least in principle” amounts to since skepticism is usually based on ideas about how things work out in practice.
People working for the same company do have some interests aligned, but it’s also easy to think of ways they can disagree. You could, for example, think some other worker is a dangerous idiot, or maybe they are racist or harass people, or they don’t pull their weight, or maybe you’d normally get along but have different ideas about strategy and whether to accept the status quo or try hard for more on principle.
It seems like unity among workers is no more guaranteed than unity among students who go to the same school? It does happen but it takes effort. A common enemy will certainly help, but not everyone sees management as the enemy.
There is plenty of skepticism of independence movements too, so I'm not sure the analogy to creating a new nation is working in your favor? The track record for revolution is mixed. It's true that just about everyone lives in some nation or other, and anarchy isn't very popular. But some nations have horrible governments that are worse than anarchy.
Unlike with citizenship, some people are in unions and others aren't. Unionized workers are often but not always better off. So it seems like the facts point towards not unionizing being a viable choice that should be considered, whatever your theory might say.
You are right, I haven't been very careful about describing your position and I'll try to do better. (I've been more concerned with trying to explain why I'm not convinced.)
So, to say a little more about what I think I understand: I agree that people take it for granted that they should live in a nation, but they don't take it for granted that they should be in a union. By analogy, I can also imagine a different world where every worker is in a union, we take it for granted that workers always have unions, and not being in a union is considered weird and possibly dangerous. For storytelling, it's not that much of a reach. I think it would work fine in speculative fiction.
However, this is based on an analogy between unions and nations. The problem with analogies is that they are comparing things that are alike in some ways and different in others. It's not really worth getting into which ways they are similar versus different, or whether the similarities or differences are more important. Analogies can be useful for getting a feel for a certain way of thinking, but they aren't very good at convincing people who aren't already convinced.
Also, there are many possible analogies. Instead comparing unions with nations, we could compare them with other forms of government like cities, homeowner's associations, or school districts, or to voluntary associations like clubs. So there's the question of whether the union <-> nation analogy is better than some other one, and that's not something we can settle using logic because analogies aren't logical arguments. Which analogies you use is a matter of taste.
Okay, let's say an argument. It seems like you're making an argument that other people are being illogical and inconsistent? That's a fairly strong claim.
So here, "people are more skeptical of unions than they are of nation states" is something that's easy to agree on. But when you say it's illogical, I don't think that follows from making an analogy. It's not inconsistent for someone else to make distinctions between things that are different, if they think the differences are important.
It's not wrong to like the nation <-> union analogy and share it if it works for you, but it doesn't mean it's inconsistent to disagree.
(It's actually really difficult to prove anything using logical arguments, outside of math.)
Unions have many of the same difficulties that democratic states have: it is much harder to stop a problematic government or leadership than simply being engaged, especially if the systems of voting and representation are antiquated and fundamentally flawed, like FPTP.
I don’t see how it’s a PR trick if they really are paying more than other businesses in the area.
So Amazon is using AWS to subsidise wages? Surely that’s a great thing, workers are being paid more.
I don’t think this is correct anyway, Amazon’s US e-commerce business does make a profit.
That really just sounds like Amazon was allowed to engage in some not-so-subtle threats and propaganda about unions. "It would be a shame if we took that pay and healthcare away if you unionized."
Related coverage from the BBC. It's well written - factual without veering into 'enlightened centrism' territory.
...
It also covers Carla Johnson's story, mentioned in the NYT article as well - the logic of "this company didn't literally leave me to die of cancer where others would have done, so I won't risk rocking the boat" is one of the most dystopian things I have ever heard. Even if there are legitimate arguments to be made about the faults with unions, that really doesn't strike me as one of them.
Here's an interesting article that goes into a bit more depth about what happened:
Flawed Approach Sunk Amazon Union Drive, But Birthed National Movement
This looks like a good blog to subscribe to if you're interested in labor issues.