I spent enough time looking at Detroit. :-) The US is by no means perfect, but I think encouraging entrepreneurship is a better solution than organized labor.
But the reality is, if Amazon is so bad, folks should just go work somewhere else.
Organized labor had an overwhelmingly positive impact on Western workers that you also benefit from in terms of work hours, weekends, holidays, and so on. But because there are some cases where unions contributed in part to financial problems (which have quite a bit to do with government corruption and corporate greed as well), they are now an antiquated artifact of the past?
> Folks should just go work somewhere else.
This is really tone deaf to the realities of the people who must accept jobs like these, though.
First - thanks for jumping in to a contentious debate.
In terms of being tone deaf, isn't that more for politicians and corporate heads? Here we're arguing ideas, like should we support unions that strike during peak periods, and what should Amazon's response be?
While I have a general dislike for unions in some places, it is specifically their company-harming tactics that bother me the most. This can be striking during the holidays (which is the situation mentioned) and can also be protesting in front of hotels, scaring away customers. This is an attitude of, "If you don't see if my way, I'll destroy the company."
While unions have made some strides, some improvements have also been a result of unilateral action by employers. Take the Henry Ford example, of shortening days and raising wages. [1]
As a broader society, we can help those who "must accept jobs like these" by encouraging entrepreneurs to create companies that could hire people like them. Employees get better treatment when there are more people fighting to hire them.
If you want to get your message across, you have to cause discomfort to the organization you want to listen. Workers asking nicely won't change anything. Businesses (and shareholders) care about one thing: profits. So the only way to get your message across is by affecting the one thing they care about.
Here's an illustrative passage from Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky:
> Recently the head of a corporation showed me the blueprint of a new plant and pointed to a large ground-floor area: “Boy, have we got an architect who is with it!” he chuckled. “See that big hall? That’s our sit-in room! When the sit-inners come they’ll be shown in and there will be coffee, T.V., and good toilet facilities — they can sit here until hell freezes over.[1][2]
Their goal was to eliminate the pain their business experienced so there was no pressure to change behavior.
As to your second example, Ford raised wages because he had a problem with high turnover, because working conditions were bad.[3]
