It was great to see that Ari Melber show (which I recorded as I do many news shows) with the News of a successful Union organizer. Nice to see Robert Reich there, too! I have avoided Amazon because of the way it treats it's workers while reaping fabulous profits.
I, too, will not shop Amazon for the same and several other reasons (one HUGE one: they are simply far too big and cornering the market in too many ways. MONOPOLIES ARE DANGEROUS. (Go, Elizabeth Warren and Friends, GO!!)
Hopefully this will create an attitude adjustment for Bezos. I have a dilemma. I'm an author and but for Amazon, I would not make a single sale, not that I get much. I don't know this as a fact, but as an author Robert probably has the same problem. Where I live, Baghdad by the Sea, Florida, in order to eat, I have three choices: Publix, closely associated with DeSantis and Trump and probably profiteering, Cuban American supermarkets, virtually all associated with the same and Amazon/Whole foods. I also subscribe to the Washington Post and watch Amazon TV. My hope is that Bezos will develop a sense of noblesse oblige.
I've been asking people like him to support the common. Start by donating to my favorite charity. He can get a tax deduction and help the rest of us.....
I have the same problem as an author, Daniel. I used to sell my books everywhere and forego Kindle Unlimited but that just reduced my sales. This is but one reason I object to Amazon’s business practices. It’s a dilemma for third-party sellers too, which is why Amazon needs to be broken up.
MM Harris ; I agree that Amazon is too big and monopolistic. How many small businesses have been closed because of this behemoth? How much money does a successful business person need?
We call Russian Oligarchs, China has Oligarchs and the US has oligarchs! When are we in America will have the guts to revolt against MONOPOLY? Abusers and hidden Racists who all have the same goals. Power to control…
Great to hear others here supporting small local businesses, while boycotting cent-billionaires who prey on their workers! Is a market/ government revolution too much to hope for?
People have become spoiled by Amazon... you can find pretty much anything there, and that overnight (or faster) thing is addictive. Most have not noticed that prices are sneakily going up. And I understand from a "Prime" subscriber that she was charged for a movie that would otherwise have been free... and the charge was NOT OBVIOUS before the movie started. It's gonna take a LOT to get people to notice these things and become mad enough to give Amazon up. (On the other hand, I was surprised to see the number of people who also reported boycotting them; it's a start..)
Patrick Daniels ; I agree It is important to support local businesses which are the fabric of our communities. It is special for me to interact with my barber shop customers, and I really appreciate their patronage. It makes the small city where we live our home.
Great win for labor in the US, i subscribed to your letters and am happy more often, its great to know that you speak truth to power. It’s comforting that you are watching out for the working people. I am retired for several years, was in the union for 30 years i often heard the smart officers of the company say “ without the union, we would not have good working conditions “
Kudos to Christian Smalls and his collaborators for all their hard work. They accomplished the near-impossible. But some credit must also be given to the Biden Labor Department, which is doing its job to support workers. I'm not sure this effort would have succeeded in a Trump, or any, Republican administration.
More generally, we have a culture of money worship in this country. Those with great wealth are presumed to be imbued with extraordinary intelligence, competence, insight, and moral character, such that many government officials take their opinions as gospel. Thus, when they proclaim themselves "job creators," legislators use that as justification to give the wealthy and large corporations whatever they demand. Many of the corporate overlords are, in reality, slave creators.
How refreshing, and congratulations to Christian Smalls.
Unions are as vital to thriving capitalism as are the capitalists themselves. It's a matter of balance. Karl Marx misunderstood Adam Smith in that he assumed the proletariat would only wield political power through revolution. The result, admittedly in slightly different forms, can be seen in the despotism of modern Russia, China, and North Korea.
Unions were just beginning to form in Germany and England at the time Marx was writing, so he should really have known better. Also, democracy was gathering momentum, as a means for the proletariat to exert influence favorable to their economic interests. Therefore, Keynes had the right to call Marx "a poor thinker."
There is no better economic system for all citizens than enlightened capitalism with democratic institutions, including unions. Things can get out of balance, however. If the unions become too strong, the capitalist shrivels and you have Britain in the 1970s. Dreadful. Nothing worked.
At the other end of the capitalist spectrum, however, you have America from the same era, with tens of millions of ordinary people starting to vote against their economic interests, thereby permitting the union-busting tactics of Reagan that led directly to Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz.
Now I don't believe either of these individuals is evil, but they dwell in an embedded corporate culture where quarterly earnings are idolized. This is a culture driven by accountants and MBAs.
Even with workers getting more of the pie, Bezos could have a house with 250 bathrooms, if he so desired. Several years ago, Paul Krugman wrote a column about an era of unprecedented, distributed, American wealth, when taxes were high. Life Magazine had an article on the richest Americans, who were mainly CEOs. In those days, a CEO might have a nice apartment in the city, a country house near a lake, and a motor boat with a couple of Evinrudes on the back. And that was about it. Happier times.
We need more and stronger unions, up to a point, we need the capitalists to pay their damn taxes, and we need a few million people to start once again voting their economic interests.
I think we're getting there, Adam Smith would have approved.
Does Amazon exert any upward pressure on the wage floor - and, if so, how should students think about balancing that fact against the fact of its craven disregard for worker safety (i.e. both not using its resources to protect workers - and then lying about it to regulators)?
No. It has increased its minimum wage to $15 but there's no evidence this has led other companies to do so. In New York, Amazon is paying below the prevailing wage for warehouse workers. In Alabama, it's paying slightly more.
So... conventional wisdom argues that its national scale/heft forces a reckoning with low wages (such that other companies offering entry-level service jobs must ultimately offer something competitive - e.g. Costco, Starbucks, Wal-mart, etc. will also offer something similar in all parts of the country); how to argue with the same? (The fact of people *still* arguing that a higher minimum wage will lead to less employment is terribly discouraging - and suggests there isn't room for discussion at all!)
PS: In the early 2000's - before the A.C.A. passed - the suggestion of recent college graduates having to work for Starbucks was the "lowest bar"... but only half if jest: Starbucks was offering healthcare insurance with employment and - all these years later - still offers benefits which are compelling when compared to other entry-level employment opportunities (i.e. life insurance & 401K); further, there was a Starbucks within a stone's throw of every St. Mary's in the country.
A step for workers is being buried by the press who follow what the powerful corporation say. "We have to raise prices because of these rotten unions". BULLSHIT. I wish someone in the mainstream media would tell the truth.
I worked at UPS for 20 years, 4 as a driver and 16 in management. Jim Casey, UPS founder, believed that his company should have a good, strong relationship with the unions. UPS still does. However, now the CEO makes millions and management complains about drivers wanting more money. I doubt that there is another company in America today where the employees work as hard as UPS package handlers and drivers. They make excellent wages and benefits, but they deserve it and a raise equal to rising costs of living. Since the stock went public in 2000 the company does what other corporations do....it's all about the investors. This didn't happen when the investors were the employees.
In the little Utah town where I live part time, some kids refer to our UPS driver as Santa Claus. She is beloved, and, sadly, her daughter died. Immediately, people started raising money for various expenses she had incurred. Thanks to postal shrinkage, we have no RFD, and I promise you the Fed Ex driver is not so enthusiastically received.
If his goal is to curb inflation, maybe he could be convinced that raising interest rates will not work as Robert pointed out in Friday’s class. But if one of his goals is to tamp down on the labor market to diminish labor’s newly found momentum, there probably’s not much chance of that happening. My personal opinion is that he’s doing this at the behest of large business interests to bring labor back in line. I know, a very cynical outlook on my part.
I find it quite interesting to hear on the morning broadcast, mainstream news that Amazon is now under investigation concerning its business practices. While >not< deriving >any< conclusions from post hoc's about it all, I do sort of wonder if the two events - union win & investigation - >might< be in some way connected. Correlation is by no means causation, but I >do< find the correlation itself >is< interesting - even if I find there's no connection at all.
Bravo to Staten Island on the first union victory over Amazon. Well done. But remember, the war is for >all< Amazon locations. Staten Island is just a first victory in said war. Carry on the fight!
A SIDEBAR: (I find this interesting enough to comment)
Notice, I've taken to including the verbiage "broadcast, mainstream news." The FCC still maintains a modicum of authority over broadcast that it doesn't have on the internet. That leads to the interesting situation we have here.
ABC and FOX share the same broadcast facility here. I see where the same news "readers" reading the local news read the news on FOX, as well - but not simultaneously. At 7:00 AM, the ABC newscasters announce that they'll be continuing the morning news on FOX, while the ABC Network news takes over with GMA. Here's the interesting part. If you switch over to the FOX broadcast station, you don't find the morning news. You find infomercials. Presumably, that means the morning local news the readers claim they'll be announcing is being read exclusively over cable - outside FCC authority.
Professor, Thank you for another clarifying missive. Because a fair amount of my civic engagement incorporates writing letters to pertinent parties, I am deeply grateful both to you and to fellow subscribers for invariably providing a larger, more complete view, in this case, of how the American profit-making system is able to do great harm both to the economy and to workers.
Great news of a victory for workers and for organizing for collective power. I watched two hours of CNN this morning and didn’t hear a word about it. I did hear more about the “infamous Will Smith slap.” Union organizing is important, but not “sexy” for corporate media like the slap.
It is sad to me that "we" keep putting in positions they do not deserve, Fed chairs who only see the world from the point of view of the huge corporation. When will we learn to choose someone who can see "the big picture" wo will act for all of us? Then, there's the media that snaps at every little tidbit that they say shows workers getting too much. Ugh! R.Sheets
I'm an Amazon reseller. It is as bad here. Resellers are ready for a class action so hurray for the warehouse workers! Hurray 4 everyone who takes a chunk out of Jeffy boy. Go workers that make the ars pay out!
As a high-school student - in 1997 - it was possible to take one's wage from $7/hr. (then California's minimum) to $13/hr. within the scope of a single summer (e.g. the first one in which having a driver's license was possible given birth in 1980). That $13/hr. - adjusted for inflation - is like $22-$24/hr. today... and was *definitely* not enough for one person, let alone a family!
It was great to see that Ari Melber show (which I recorded as I do many news shows) with the News of a successful Union organizer. Nice to see Robert Reich there, too! I have avoided Amazon because of the way it treats it's workers while reaping fabulous profits.
I, too, will not shop Amazon for the same and several other reasons (one HUGE one: they are simply far too big and cornering the market in too many ways. MONOPOLIES ARE DANGEROUS. (Go, Elizabeth Warren and Friends, GO!!)
Hopefully this will create an attitude adjustment for Bezos. I have a dilemma. I'm an author and but for Amazon, I would not make a single sale, not that I get much. I don't know this as a fact, but as an author Robert probably has the same problem. Where I live, Baghdad by the Sea, Florida, in order to eat, I have three choices: Publix, closely associated with DeSantis and Trump and probably profiteering, Cuban American supermarkets, virtually all associated with the same and Amazon/Whole foods. I also subscribe to the Washington Post and watch Amazon TV. My hope is that Bezos will develop a sense of noblesse oblige.
I've been asking people like him to support the common. Start by donating to my favorite charity. He can get a tax deduction and help the rest of us.....
https://www.ssa.gov/agency/donations.html
Help protect widow(ers), orphans and disabled wage earners!!!!
I have the same problem as an author, Daniel. I used to sell my books everywhere and forego Kindle Unlimited but that just reduced my sales. This is but one reason I object to Amazon’s business practices. It’s a dilemma for third-party sellers too, which is why Amazon needs to be broken up.
Not likely. Sorry.
MM Harris ; I agree that Amazon is too big and monopolistic. How many small businesses have been closed because of this behemoth? How much money does a successful business person need?
We call Russian Oligarchs, China has Oligarchs and the US has oligarchs! When are we in America will have the guts to revolt against MONOPOLY? Abusers and hidden Racists who all have the same goals. Power to control…
Great to hear others here supporting small local businesses, while boycotting cent-billionaires who prey on their workers! Is a market/ government revolution too much to hope for?
People have become spoiled by Amazon... you can find pretty much anything there, and that overnight (or faster) thing is addictive. Most have not noticed that prices are sneakily going up. And I understand from a "Prime" subscriber that she was charged for a movie that would otherwise have been free... and the charge was NOT OBVIOUS before the movie started. It's gonna take a LOT to get people to notice these things and become mad enough to give Amazon up. (On the other hand, I was surprised to see the number of people who also reported boycotting them; it's a start..)
Patrick Daniels ; I agree It is important to support local businesses which are the fabric of our communities. It is special for me to interact with my barber shop customers, and I really appreciate their patronage. It makes the small city where we live our home.
Great win for labor in the US, i subscribed to your letters and am happy more often, its great to know that you speak truth to power. It’s comforting that you are watching out for the working people. I am retired for several years, was in the union for 30 years i often heard the smart officers of the company say “ without the union, we would not have good working conditions “
Thanks, William. A whopping 78 percent of Americans now support unions -- the highest level of support in more than 40 years.
Kudos to Christian Smalls and his collaborators for all their hard work. They accomplished the near-impossible. But some credit must also be given to the Biden Labor Department, which is doing its job to support workers. I'm not sure this effort would have succeeded in a Trump, or any, Republican administration.
More generally, we have a culture of money worship in this country. Those with great wealth are presumed to be imbued with extraordinary intelligence, competence, insight, and moral character, such that many government officials take their opinions as gospel. Thus, when they proclaim themselves "job creators," legislators use that as justification to give the wealthy and large corporations whatever they demand. Many of the corporate overlords are, in reality, slave creators.
Yes, the Biden Labor Department and also the National Labor Relations Board -- both are stepping up to the plate.
And while Bezos is clearly competent, many of the rest of them are not, starting with Trump himself.
How refreshing, and congratulations to Christian Smalls.
Unions are as vital to thriving capitalism as are the capitalists themselves. It's a matter of balance. Karl Marx misunderstood Adam Smith in that he assumed the proletariat would only wield political power through revolution. The result, admittedly in slightly different forms, can be seen in the despotism of modern Russia, China, and North Korea.
Unions were just beginning to form in Germany and England at the time Marx was writing, so he should really have known better. Also, democracy was gathering momentum, as a means for the proletariat to exert influence favorable to their economic interests. Therefore, Keynes had the right to call Marx "a poor thinker."
There is no better economic system for all citizens than enlightened capitalism with democratic institutions, including unions. Things can get out of balance, however. If the unions become too strong, the capitalist shrivels and you have Britain in the 1970s. Dreadful. Nothing worked.
At the other end of the capitalist spectrum, however, you have America from the same era, with tens of millions of ordinary people starting to vote against their economic interests, thereby permitting the union-busting tactics of Reagan that led directly to Jeff Bezos and Howard Schultz.
Now I don't believe either of these individuals is evil, but they dwell in an embedded corporate culture where quarterly earnings are idolized. This is a culture driven by accountants and MBAs.
Even with workers getting more of the pie, Bezos could have a house with 250 bathrooms, if he so desired. Several years ago, Paul Krugman wrote a column about an era of unprecedented, distributed, American wealth, when taxes were high. Life Magazine had an article on the richest Americans, who were mainly CEOs. In those days, a CEO might have a nice apartment in the city, a country house near a lake, and a motor boat with a couple of Evinrudes on the back. And that was about it. Happier times.
We need more and stronger unions, up to a point, we need the capitalists to pay their damn taxes, and we need a few million people to start once again voting their economic interests.
I think we're getting there, Adam Smith would have approved.
Does Amazon exert any upward pressure on the wage floor - and, if so, how should students think about balancing that fact against the fact of its craven disregard for worker safety (i.e. both not using its resources to protect workers - and then lying about it to regulators)?
No. It has increased its minimum wage to $15 but there's no evidence this has led other companies to do so. In New York, Amazon is paying below the prevailing wage for warehouse workers. In Alabama, it's paying slightly more.
So... conventional wisdom argues that its national scale/heft forces a reckoning with low wages (such that other companies offering entry-level service jobs must ultimately offer something competitive - e.g. Costco, Starbucks, Wal-mart, etc. will also offer something similar in all parts of the country); how to argue with the same? (The fact of people *still* arguing that a higher minimum wage will lead to less employment is terribly discouraging - and suggests there isn't room for discussion at all!)
PS: In the early 2000's - before the A.C.A. passed - the suggestion of recent college graduates having to work for Starbucks was the "lowest bar"... but only half if jest: Starbucks was offering healthcare insurance with employment and - all these years later - still offers benefits which are compelling when compared to other entry-level employment opportunities (i.e. life insurance & 401K); further, there was a Starbucks within a stone's throw of every St. Mary's in the country.
A stunning victory and about time.
Unions are not the problem.
Management corruption is.
Bravo to these wonderful people!
Most importantly, unions created the largest part of our middle class in America.
May it continue!
A step for workers is being buried by the press who follow what the powerful corporation say. "We have to raise prices because of these rotten unions". BULLSHIT. I wish someone in the mainstream media would tell the truth.
Maybe if they were unionized they would.
I worked at UPS for 20 years, 4 as a driver and 16 in management. Jim Casey, UPS founder, believed that his company should have a good, strong relationship with the unions. UPS still does. However, now the CEO makes millions and management complains about drivers wanting more money. I doubt that there is another company in America today where the employees work as hard as UPS package handlers and drivers. They make excellent wages and benefits, but they deserve it and a raise equal to rising costs of living. Since the stock went public in 2000 the company does what other corporations do....it's all about the investors. This didn't happen when the investors were the employees.
In the little Utah town where I live part time, some kids refer to our UPS driver as Santa Claus. She is beloved, and, sadly, her daughter died. Immediately, people started raising money for various expenses she had incurred. Thanks to postal shrinkage, we have no RFD, and I promise you the Fed Ex driver is not so enthusiastically received.
I rarely talk to anyone that does not love their UPS driver. That said I knew some pretty lousy ones.
Management is just jealous that the drivers get to wear shorts.
= )
(Is there any profit-sharing or employee-stock purchase (EPP) program?)
I sell on Amazon and I can tell you they play the monopoly game at all levels and price fixing is as common as the day is long.
Jerome Powell needs to have his mind changed.
If his goal is to curb inflation, maybe he could be convinced that raising interest rates will not work as Robert pointed out in Friday’s class. But if one of his goals is to tamp down on the labor market to diminish labor’s newly found momentum, there probably’s not much chance of that happening. My personal opinion is that he’s doing this at the behest of large business interests to bring labor back in line. I know, a very cynical outlook on my part.
I find it quite interesting to hear on the morning broadcast, mainstream news that Amazon is now under investigation concerning its business practices. While >not< deriving >any< conclusions from post hoc's about it all, I do sort of wonder if the two events - union win & investigation - >might< be in some way connected. Correlation is by no means causation, but I >do< find the correlation itself >is< interesting - even if I find there's no connection at all.
Bravo to Staten Island on the first union victory over Amazon. Well done. But remember, the war is for >all< Amazon locations. Staten Island is just a first victory in said war. Carry on the fight!
A SIDEBAR: (I find this interesting enough to comment)
Notice, I've taken to including the verbiage "broadcast, mainstream news." The FCC still maintains a modicum of authority over broadcast that it doesn't have on the internet. That leads to the interesting situation we have here.
ABC and FOX share the same broadcast facility here. I see where the same news "readers" reading the local news read the news on FOX, as well - but not simultaneously. At 7:00 AM, the ABC newscasters announce that they'll be continuing the morning news on FOX, while the ABC Network news takes over with GMA. Here's the interesting part. If you switch over to the FOX broadcast station, you don't find the morning news. You find infomercials. Presumably, that means the morning local news the readers claim they'll be announcing is being read exclusively over cable - outside FCC authority.
!
Professor, Thank you for another clarifying missive. Because a fair amount of my civic engagement incorporates writing letters to pertinent parties, I am deeply grateful both to you and to fellow subscribers for invariably providing a larger, more complete view, in this case, of how the American profit-making system is able to do great harm both to the economy and to workers.
Great news of a victory for workers and for organizing for collective power. I watched two hours of CNN this morning and didn’t hear a word about it. I did hear more about the “infamous Will Smith slap.” Union organizing is important, but not “sexy” for corporate media like the slap.
It is sad to me that "we" keep putting in positions they do not deserve, Fed chairs who only see the world from the point of view of the huge corporation. When will we learn to choose someone who can see "the big picture" wo will act for all of us? Then, there's the media that snaps at every little tidbit that they say shows workers getting too much. Ugh! R.Sheets
I'm an Amazon reseller. It is as bad here. Resellers are ready for a class action so hurray for the warehouse workers! Hurray 4 everyone who takes a chunk out of Jeffy boy. Go workers that make the ars pay out!
So thrilled that they are demanding a $30/hour base salary. It's sickening to think of workers making $15 or $20/hour and called that a living wage!
As a high-school student - in 1997 - it was possible to take one's wage from $7/hr. (then California's minimum) to $13/hr. within the scope of a single summer (e.g. the first one in which having a driver's license was possible given birth in 1980). That $13/hr. - adjusted for inflation - is like $22-$24/hr. today... and was *definitely* not enough for one person, let alone a family!