Amazon Says It Doesn’t ‘Employ’ Drivers, But Records Show It Hired Firms to Prevent Them From Unionizing::Amazon spent $14.2 million total on anti-union consulting in 2022, filings with the Department of Labor show.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      1 year ago

      Can’t unionize a workplace when you’re the owner and only employee. That’s how the law treats “independent contractors”.

      • Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I kinda don’t like how unions are a regulated legal thing… Why are they not just a a private club, where people collectively agree to not take shit conditions anymore? Why can’t all independent contractors go on strike tomorrow?

        • quicksand@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          1 year ago

          I agree. I don’t want to take power from the existing unions, but they should be able to exist in some less official capacity as well. 1st amendment says freedom of association, right?

          • fluxion@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            1 year ago

            That’s what they are trying to do, and why Amazon is paying multiple firms to fuck with them over it.

          • LukeMedia@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Unions are part of a free labor market, and any attempt to bust them is an attempt to prevent a free economy. Funny how corporations have convinced so many that’s it’s a bad thing

            • Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Unions should exist, but they should be something that needs voting and shit to create. All it needs is a law that protects worker from being fired for joining a union, nothing more. Then workers can join, or not join, however they like.

          • irotsoma@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Less official means less protection. Which means, you talk about organizing and, “you’re fired”. Just Google some of the history of unions and the reason the NLRB was created in the first place. Without government protection or mafioso strongmen, it’s hard to get companies to give in and keep scabs from taking jobs if you refuse to work.

        • irotsoma@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          Because employers have the power. Without the legally protected status as a union you have no legal right to protest the conditions of your job. You have no right to refuse to work under dangerous conditions. And employers are free to retaliate against workers for even talking about unions or talking about reporting the dangerous conditions. How are you going to get people together who are all desperate for money and get them all to agree to go on strike and then get other people to not come in and take the jobs. One way used to be to call them scabs, make everyone else hate them through propaganda campaigns, and hire the Mafia to beat them up until they quit and no one else would take the jobs. It wasn’t until the NLRA that unions were protected.

          But conservatives have turned anti-worker now due to their reliance on corporate donations among other things. And they have spent decades making unions look bad, saying they’re just criminal organizations, and calling them communism. So not enough people are going to feel sorry for the striking worker or hate on the scabs enough to pressure the companies to give in to demands.