• barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    IIRC Amazon has ludicrous turnover in their warehouses so the “do you want to gamble on better conditions?” point seems kind of ineffective. Like okay do I want to maybe get better conditions or definitely burn out in 4 months and quit?

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      high turnover rate is actually good for the capitalists. It means a large reserve army of labor. it means a fresh supply of scabs. it means people will quit ‘‘before’’ they even ‘‘try’’ to unionize because they’ve been taught that’s what you do when a job sucks, you quit and get a new one that also sucks, and so on to infinity. Quitting will ‘‘always’’ be easier than unionizing, and people only unionize when they think “this is my job, I’m going to be here for a long time.” Unions were strongest when people worked in the same company their whole lives. The more mobile and nomadic the work force, the easier capital is able to dissuade unionization efforts.

    • Nagarjuna [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      A union is a new concept for most marginal workers. This means that for them to make the leap, they’ve got to overcome their uncertainty. If a company can cast even a little doubt, it can be tremendously effective.

      The traditional way to overcome this is to have coworkers be the ones advocating for a union, not staff. This is really hard at Amazon because of the high turnover. If you look at JFK8, Smalls was a manager, i.e., one of the only people not turning over every 3 months.

      • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I know people who’ve tried to salt in these warehouses and, well, even here it’s hard to physically find the time and energy. They actually use pathing algorithms that reduce efficiency to prevent employees from having too much contact.