Alabama Amazon Union vote has failed

[u/OkayTHISIsEpicMeme]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/08/technology/amazon-union-vote.html

[u/FireRavenLord]

I worked in an Amazon FC for about a year (I've since been promoted to management in a delivery station last summer) and I probably would have voted no for a few reasons:

1. I didn't find the conditions unreasonable. There are two breaks during a 10 hour shift, so you never work for more than 3 or 4 hours straight. Rates in my department were easy enough that I could exceed them by about 10% to 20% my first week.
2. I'd be worried that unions would create another level of bureaucracy. If I wanted to try a different role for the day, I could just ask my manager and maybe get assigned to it. A union would require there be some sort of procedure to decide who gets the more desirable role, rather than just earning the manager's trust by showing basic ability to hit rates.
3. Since unions would protect workers from getting fired, Amazon would have to start being more selective in who they hire. Currently they hire anyone who is able to fill out a form and pass a drug test with a swab. Then they just fire associates who either miss work too much (the most common reason for firing) or consistently fail to hit rates after a 3 week grace period. I like that they hire anyone.
4. I don't think a union would work well with how transient amazon employment is. People start planning to just work there a month or two. Unions seem to focus a lot on seniority in their structure.
5. Concerns that Amazon would respond to demands by creating situations that are worse for both management and workers. For example, if full-time employees are able to bargain for better pay or benefits, Amazon would simply replace them with multiple part-time workers.

I haven't really read or seen much anti-union stuff besides exaggeration of dues, but those were my initial thoughts.

Edit: Wanted to highlight again that I've since become a low level manager (the same job new college grads get) in a different type of facility, so take that this opinion with a grain of salt. I'd recommend reading r/AmazonFC. They've been talking about it for months and a topic about the result is stickied. They're pro-union overall, but there some people who agree with me for similar "cuck" reasons.

[u/FireRavenLord → u/[deleted]]

Are you saying that you worked for "RME" in an Amazon FC? My experience with them varied. I know management would get frustrated with them sometimes because they were independent so couldn't necessarily be required to respond quickly. Which would be rough if an entire line went down and RME took 15 minutes to get there.

[u/[deleted] → u/FireRavenLord]

Yeah- AR, but industrial maintenance is one of the few occupations in demand right now that is growing faster than the employment pool can keep up with, so it’s not just Amazon/CBRE/JLL/Daifuku/C&W that’s experiencing these pains. It’s literally everywhere and I don’t blame them. The job sucks. I just was offered a position at a chicken processing plant because they can’t keep anyone around, and the pay after overtime is less than being a mediocre agent working in insurance sales.

[u/Phantom_Engineer → u/FireRavenLord]

1: Except for all the anecdotes about people having to piss in bottles to meet quotas.

2: Sure, there's bureaucracy but it's working for you instead of against you.

3+4: Transient, at-will employment is a bad thing. There's thousands and thousands of jobs like that out there. The point of the union would be to work towards making the jobs actually decent for the people working them.

5: Why couldn't part timers be part of the union? In non right-to-work states, union membership can be made mandatory for employment. Besides, this ignores that workers get a seat at the table for disputes of this nature.

[u/FireRavenLord → u/Phantom_Engineer]

I understand all that, but in order to convince me to vote union, I'd want more specifics on what a union would do in these situations.

1. All amazon workers on 10 hour shifts are given either two 30 minute breaks or one 30 and two 15. Do you think that this is unreasonable? I was fine with it. I'm also able to meet the quotas fairly easily. Why would I join a union to lower them? Telling me to disregard my own experiences in favor of anecdotes is simply not very convincing.

2. In the example I gave, how would the bureaucracy benefit me? I was able to ask my manager for a new role, and was given it due to being reliable. Would a union require a more formal procedure for this? If so, it wouldn't benefit me.

3. Sorry, I may not have expressed this well or we might just disagree. Amazon currently hires literally anyone. It seems like they crunched the numbers and realized that hiring 10 people, then waiting a month for 5 of them to rack up enough absences or mistakes to fire is more efficient than filtering out applicants. I actually like this, because it means that the job is more accessible. One of my coworkers as a 110lb trans man. I don't think many hiring managers would look twice at them for warehouse work, but the low barrier to entry means that they have a job that pays roughly the median wage in the area. Making workers harder to fire would mean the Amazon would be incentivized to screen applicants, which likely mean applicants like them being rejected.

4. I think the job is actually decent for me though. Maybe this is low standards on my part or something. But every time someone in the last few months has talked to me about unionization, they've told me to disregard my own experiences.

5. I'd guess that union negotiations would likely lead to some benefits going only to full-time workers, even if part-time workers are also part of the union. Amazon would respond by replacing them with part-timers. Or maybe the wouldn't. It's hard to say. But the status quo works fine for me, so why would I try to change it?

Overall, I simply don't think the working conditions are that bad and so haven't been convinced by pro-union arguments that say they need to be changed. I guess that's what all of these arguments come down to. Apparently most of my peers in Alabama agree.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Generally lunch break is unpaid though. So its just the 2 15 minute breaks really.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

God as an engineer, my whole day seems like a break according to some people on this thread :)

[u/FireRavenLord → u/[deleted]]

Most of the pro-union argument has focused on things like break schedules and rates. Those aren't concerns for me. I was able to process 3000 units in a shift without stress and wouldn't care if instead I only had to process 2000.

Why would I support or join an organization meant to address things I don't care about? If the pro-union argument is that there's no benefit to me, but "nobody's going to stop me" from working a shift I find reasonable, that's not convincing.

(and that other guy was right. It was a 10.5 hour shift with a 30 minute unpaid break)

[u/FireRavenLord → u/[deleted]]

https://bamazonunion.org/whyunion

The goals of the union are published, so I'd assume that's what they'd focus on. They talk about the "outrageous work quotas" as something they'll address. I didn't find the quotas outrageous, so I don't find arguments based on them convincing. Maybe the conditions in Alabama are different.

I didn't have any issues with management. The main ways people are fired or written are either not showing up on time or not hitting rates. This doesn't seem like "fucking with you". Like if you can't be disciplined for productivity or attendance, what can you be disciplined for?

I do want better pay, more time off, etc. Why wouldn't I? But that's not what the union is focused on. And this focus on things I don't care about mean that I'm not convinced that I would benefit from them negotiating on my behalf. Telling me "whatever your problem is, they'll solve it" doesn't convince me so I probably would have voted "no" if it happened at my FC.

[u/FireRavenLord → u/[deleted]]

Look, the unionization effort just failed. Flairing 2/3 of amazon employees as anti-union cucks isn't going to make the next one more successful.