My union dues are 1/52 of my yearly pay. I make $25.77 an hour in an entry level job with no education requirements. Minimum wage here is $16.55 an hour.
Well you may be making 50k before taxes, but you're paying like a thousand dollars a year in union dues! You could instead be making 33k with no union dues, and a smaller tax burden. Think of how much you could buy with that extra thousand dollars!
On a side note are you hiring, and how far are you from Wichita, Kansas? I don't mind a commute
Unfortunately for "Darla", Amazon already pays her barely enough to scrape by. Before union dues. I'm fairly certain the union or the dues aren't the issues "Darla" should be voicing her concerns over.
Yeah the argument itself is so transparently dumb that no legitimate person would hold it; and I think the dunk tweet is pointing out that in addition to having no good argument, Amazon thinks we're too stupid to notice the astroturf.
There are people who genuinely believe this, sadly. I've encountered them here where I live in South Dakota where we're propagandized against unions from a very young age. These are people who would easily fall for obvious astroturfing like Darla above. It's one reason I think basic tech and media literacy are so important.
unions are trying to use the threat of a strike to increase worker wages so that fewer workers need to scrape by. We should have union loans that pay union dues until the wages are increased (by union activity), and then use part of the increased wages to pay off the loan.
no, I think a strike fund is different, a strike fund is like a collective savings account for union members to save up for a strike, while my idea prevents workers interested in unions but not interested in union dues from needing to pay union dues until after their wages are increased.
Yeah, but that starts to walk right up to the 'right to work' line, give me the benefits of a union shop without the responsibilities like voting, dues, or solidarity of action until later. If a union is in place you already have benefits of it most likely by having a guaranteed raise schedule or higher starting wages than you otherwise would. If it's just being established you'll have a vote, and if it gets established against your vote then that's just the way it is and you either join or leave.
The dues are integral towards the operation by funding things like a strike fund, hiring negotiators, or any other operational costs.
Think the other side of it, you get hired and floated a 'loan' until some later point. In the interim a strike is called. Are you going to walk out and expect pay from the union from a fund you haven't paid into?
well yeah kinda. What I mean is that means testing employees trying to unionize by requesting union dues before joining is a great way to to segregate the workforce between the wealthy (those who can afford union dues) and the poor (those who can't afford union dues). At the extreme, it's like an elite club of the highest-earning employees and the employees who work a sidegig. There should be union financial aid available for those whose expenses and budget can't afford to join a union until after they get a raise.
Amazon probably outsourcing to a PR that specializes in union busting.
But the PR firm that has little technical expertise - they just know they need bots to do some astroturfing.
So the PR firm outsources to an IT consulting firm.
But the IT consulting firm only bids on contracts, they don't do the actual work, so they find a subcontractor.
The subcontractor may hire subcontractors. Continue this step for however many iterations the value of the contract will allow.
Eventually the subcontractor hires a gig worker or an underpaid staffer to do the minimal amount of work possible.
The gig worker avoids as much effort as possible, because they're paid by volume rather than time.
At this point the requirements may or may not be fulfilled, but the admins of each org are satisfied, so they move on to the next contract without verifying the work.
Edit: I wrote this facetiously, but u/SpaceNoodle found a news article suggesting at least some of these accounts are legit, as backed up by a Belling Cat investigation.
If Amazon wants better astroturfing from the gig workers, those gig workers doing the actual work need to get a much bigger chunk of the money. They should unionize!
Something similar happened when there were all of those news stories about abusive work environments at Amazon. Amazon employees spontaneously tweeting about how much they loved their jobs.
There's no reason to try any harder than this. Most people who will see this tweet won't look at the handle or the replies - they're read the tweet, then move on. And if they see enough of these tweets, they may just internalize the notion that unions aren't worth it. It's better for Amazon to make more tweets than it is for them to make better tweets. And it's not like they're going to see any repercussions for trying to maliciously influence their employees.
