I know that that's the title of the article but I read the article and came away mostly thinking nothing was all that bad. Is it because the notes said the organizer isn't eloquent or smart that there is reason to be upset?
Not because they said the organizer isn't eloquent or smart, but because Amazon wants to make this person the face of the movement.
They're trying to make the whole movement look dumb by proxy, or that anyone who joined the movement is dumb because they're following a dumb guy. The public PR angle is that only a dumb stupid babbling person would deny the goodness that Amazon does for its employees and try to organize a walkout.
I think it's interesting the contrast with the SVP who said he let his emotions got the better of him. If the union guy says something not-smart, he's dumb and the whole movement is dumb. If the SVP says something not-smart, he was just trying to protect the workers.
Agreed with P that the dirty part is Amazon trying to smear an entire labor movement by focusing on this organizer. Ironically the strategy has completely backfired.
Agreed with GP that the other parts of the memo about obtaining and distributing masks don’t sound so bad at all, especially if they actually translate it into safer environments at warehouses and surrounding communities.
In general, I wish companies who want to avoid unions just treated their workers well enough that they don’t want to unionize — seems like the most straight up way to “fight” unions. It’s akin to simply improving your product to get more users instead of employing dark patterns or grey hat SEO.
I wish companies who want to avoid unions just treated their workers well enough that they don’t want to unionize — seems like the most straight up way to “fight” unions.
That's pretty clearly not the case. Unions aren't about being 'treated well' in so many cases, they're about granting power to the union organisers.
Look at Kickstarter. They got a union because they took down a project that was violating their own terms of service by fund-raising for political violence. The union organisers primary aim was literally to force Kickstarter to support violence against conservatives. Being treated well had nothing to do with it. Look at Google. A pampered workforce, talking of unionising to try and force the organisation even further to the left.
Smart managers fight unions with everything they've got, or else the most hard-left workers they've got will take over the company by force and subvert it to evil political ends.
How is this any different than the liberal media making Trump the voice of conservatives in the 2016? (which backfired spectacularly and led to his rise and eventual win in the election).
Before liberals downvote me. Conservative media does this too. In fact, journalism these days regardless of political views is riddled with making someone look bad to score cheap points. One of the most toxic more recent developments is taking particularly unflattering still images from high definition video to present someone as dumb, stupid, angry or any of the myriad emotions one might present in the course of existing while filmed.
Making your opponent look bad is sadly par for the course pretty much everywhere these days from politics to corporate PR to social media debates on facebook and twitter. Heck, you see it here on HN too these days. Certainly far more than in the past.
I seem to remember "liberal" media being quite obsessed with reporting on never-Trump and disaffected conservatives who were horrified by Trump. In so far as Trump is presented as the voice of conservatives it's because conservatives in the US have made him that by supporting him with absolutely insane approval ratings, no matter what he does.
Also complaining about downvoting usually just leads to downvotes...
Mm got the same feeling as well. You could even argue that amazon holds a function that is critical to society. Postal workers elsewhere still would have to work as well as Police officers. If say Postal workers in Finland who does basically the same work wanted to organize a strike, the laws of how and when you can have a strike would work against them.
