{"id":5218,"date":"2021-05-22T14:45:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-22T14:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5218"},"modified":"2021-05-22T14:45:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-22T14:45:23","slug":"what-american-workers-really-want-instead-of-a-union-at-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5218","title":{"rendered":"What American Workers Really Want Instead of a Union at Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“After an intensive, months-long election<\/a>, only one-eighth of the workers at Amazon\u2019s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse voted in favor of a union. More than twice as many voted against. Roughly half didn\u2019t vote at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election\u2019s losers are incredulous that they could have fallen short on the merits. Challenges are already underway, accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices such as positioning a mailbox improperly<\/a>. And to be sure, Amazon appears to have behaved obnoxiously, and perhaps even unlawfully in some instances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when nearly 6,000 workers have two months to cast ballots, and the union secures fewer than 750 \u201cyes\u201d votes, the idea that it has what workers want looks a bit ridiculous.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Workers have shown that they dislike the hyper-adversarialism and political activism that American unions bring into their workplaces but are eager for more representation, voice, and support than they can achieve individually. What they want, and need, is a middle ground that neither side is offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research has borne this out. In a landmark 1994 survey, Harvard professor Richard Freeman and University of Wisconsin professor Joel Rogers asked more than 2,400 nonmanagement workers whether they would prefer representation by an organization that \u201cmanagement cooperated with in discussing issues, but had no power to make decisions\u201d or by one \u201cthat had more power, but management opposed.\u201d Workers preferred cooperation to an adversarial stance by 63 percent to 22 percent, a result that held even among active union members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, MIT professor Thomas Kochan conducted a similar survey<\/a> and found that interest in joining a union had grown and workers wanted a wide range of services that a union could provide to them, including: collective bargaining; health, unemployment, and training benefits; legal assistance; input into work processes; and representation in management decision-making. On the long menu of options, the two that stood out as making workers less<\/em> likely to join are exact the ones that seem to get union activists most excited: politics and strikes.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2021\/04\/20\/what-american-workers-really-want-instead-of-a-union-at-amazon-483117<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“After an intensive, months-long election, only one-eighth of the workers at Amazon\u2019s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse voted in favor of a union. More than twice as many voted against. Roughly half didn\u2019t vote at all.<\/p>\n

The election\u2019s losers are incredulous that they could have fallen short on the merits. Challenges are already underway, accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices such as positioning a mailbox improperly. And to be sure, Amazon appears to have behaved obnoxiously, and perhaps even unlawfully in some instances.<\/p>\n

But when nearly 6,000 workers have two months to cast ballots, and the union secures fewer than 750 \u201cyes\u201d votes, the idea that it has what workers want looks a bit ridiculous.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Workers have shown that they dislike the hyper-adversarialism and political activism that American unions bring into their workplaces but are eager for more representation, voice, and support than they can achieve individually. What they want, and need, is a middle ground that neither side is offering.<\/p>\n

Research has borne this out. In a landmark 1994 survey, Harvard professor Richard Freeman and University of Wisconsin professor Joel Rogers asked more than 2,400 nonmanagement workers whether they would prefer representation by an organization that \u201cmanagement cooperated with in discussing issues, but had no power to make decisions\u201d or by one \u201cthat had more power, but management opposed.\u201d Workers preferred cooperation to an adversarial stance by 63 percent to 22 percent, a result that held even among active union members.<\/p>\n

In 2017, MIT professor Thomas Kochan conducted a similar survey and found that interest in joining a union had grown and workers wanted a wide range of services that a union could provide to them, including: collective bargaining; health, unemployment, and training benefits; legal assistance; input into work processes; and representation in management decision-making. On the long menu of options, the two that stood out as making workers less likely to join are exact the ones that seem to get union activists most excited: politics and strikes.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[453,372,198,877,574],"class_list":["post-5218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-amazon","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-unions","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5218"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5219,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5218\/revisions\/5219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}