'Fake' Amazon Workers Defend Company on Twitter (bbc.com) 89
'Fake' accounts claiming to be Amazon workers have been praising their working conditions on Twitter. From a report: Votes are currently being counted in Alabama to decide whether Amazon warehouse workers will form a union. But last night, a series of anti-union tweets were sent from accounts claiming to be staff. Twitter has now suspended many of the accounts, and Amazon has confirmed at least one is fake. Most of the accounts were made just a few days ago, often with only a few tweets, all related to Amazon. "What bothers me most about unions is there's no ability to opt out of dues," one user under the handle @AmazonFCDarla tweeted, despite a state law in Alabama which prevents this. "Amazon takes great care of me," she added. Another account - which later changed its profile picture after it was revealed to be fake - said: "Unions are good for some companies, but I don't want to have to shell out hundreds a month just for lawyers!" Many of the accounts involved used the handle @AmazonFC followed by a first name. Amazon has previously used this handle for its so-called Amazon Ambassadors - real employees who are paid by the firm to promote and defend it on Twitter. Further reading: Amazon Loses Effort To Install Camera To Watch Counting of Ballots in Pivotal Union Vote.
You can bet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
You can bet Amazon is going to use every dirty trick in the book.
While obviously Amazon doesn't want a union presense, you would think they are in a great position to negotiate with a state-wide union in fulfillment centers. They could likely handle a state-wide strike in those centers with minimal impact on their business. What leverage would the union really have without being a lot larger than a single state?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Everything in this situation are things that weaken the union's position:
There is an absurd glut of employees looking for work everywhere so scabs will be easy to come by.
Amazon already has massive turn over and their HR has perfected massive and quick hiring of dozens, if not hundreds, of employees at a time.
Amazon has world class logistics so erasing an entire state might, at worst, add a day to shipping times with negligible cost increase.
Amazon has far more money to burn than any union so any sort of st
Re: (Score:2)
I honestly can't understand what the employees hoped to accomplish voting for a union other than showing other people why they had to settle on an Amazon warehouse job in the first place.
It certainly doesn't paint a rosy picture of what working at a fulfillment center must be like. Maybe if you feel like quitting soon anyways, throw the hail mary pass and if it doesn't work out adios shit job.
Re: (Score:2)
I've worked at two during peak months for extra money. The work itself is no different than working at another warehouse. You do it part time if you want easy money but yeah, you only do it permanently fulltime if you absolutely can't find any other work or you enjoy mindless repetition with little to no possibility of advancement.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Possibly. The two I worked at were around 150 miles apart and in different states but were functionally identical. Even the morning stretching exercises were the same. It almost felt like everything was scripted/dictated from on high. I suppose if you were stuck in a location with shitty managers, especially ones who play favorites, it could be a nightmare over the long run.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
> There is an absurd glut of employees looking for work everywhere so scabs will be easy to come by.
oh really [abc13.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
Are you honestly suggesting that 6% unemployment is low?
We were at 3.5% in February of 2020. And the numbers are outside of the fact that Amazon will hire almost anyone to work at their fulfillment centers.
Re:You can bet (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions are at their strongest when they team up with other unions to where crossing one means crossing them all, which is how it should be for the working man. A warehouse that is blacklisted by the state's biggest janitorial, electrician, plumbing, and security companies might as well be a giant money-filled pinata in a public park.
Through IT into that too (Score:2)
Re: Through IT into that too (Score:1)
Because why deal with one bureaucracy and set of petty politics, when you can deal with *two* at the same time?
Did we mention that one of them has no problem intimidating its "members" with threats of violence and has no problem shutting down schools and hospitals for "solidarity" whatever the hell that means?
Unions in theory can do good. Unions in practice are yet another mechanism by which petty control freaks pick your pocket and tell you how to live.
The best pro-worker policy is a strong economy that le
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon management is not full of stupid people, which is what this sort of heavy handed and easily exposed foolishness would take. If it were a company operation it would be much more subtle and well organized. This sounds to me like some right wing anti-union group, which tend to be manned by folks like the parent poster whose idea of 'subtle' is a sledgehammer.
*Full disclosure*
I work at Amazon Corporate Security, nothing to do with the FCs, HR or PR.
Re: Through IT into that too (Score:2)
Oh please. Everyone's a triple agent with a side hustle as a quadruple agent for a putative neutral party.
How about, some people, myself included, think big labor is just as bad, if not worse, for the little guy as big business. That's real and it's not all psyops and false flags.
And for the record, I do and say lots of stuff, but lie about my own opinions or sugarcoat them isn't one of them. If you want to call that a sledgehammer, then hammer away.
Re: (Score:3)
The best pro-worker policy is a strong economy that lets any worker tell his employer to fuck himself and take a better job.
The problem is that employers have built in all kinds of structural protections that make this more difficult and sometimes costly. I know plenty of people who have stayed with less desirable jobs because they wind up losing unvested retirement funds, are stuck for months with unaffordable interim healthcare, and so on.
I don't disagree that unions, when they go wrong, can be a double dose of bad news.
That being said, neither unions nor employers really want people to be as independent as possible when it c
Re: (Score:2)
I've been in places that unionized and had them come up and tell me I now had to pay money to them for what I already had. Fuck 'em.
Re: Through IT into that too (Score:2)
I'm salaried but wirked with hourly guys who were nominally unionized. Some of them absolutely hated the work rules and freeloaders and the fact that their wage was capped by seniority and job catagory.
We had one guy who was really good, but we couldn't give him a raise and it was pulling teeth to promote him even one tick for the pay boost that it came with...because the union rules were there...for his own good.
MA is about as far from right-to-work as you can get, and that's just one example I've personal
Re: (Score:3)
Yet we keep hearing all about how the economy is booming (on Wall Street) and worker's pay keeps not keeping up with inflation (like for the past 30-40 years). A strong economy that doesn't reach the people making that economy happen is useless.
Without unions, we'll need NEGATIVE unemployment numbers, that is, an economy where what we track is the number of employees that employers are chronically short of. The kind of economy where HR actively seeks out and removes extraneous qualifications from job ads an
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
A warehouse that is blacklisted by the state's biggest janitorial, electrician, plumbing, and security companies might as well be a giant money-filled pinata in a public park.
But my point is couldn't Amazon handle having all of their Georgia warehouses being shut down? Warehouses in Tennessee, the Carolinas, Florida, and Alabama should do a good job of giving coverage. Amazon is everywhere.
If the union was regional or national that is a bigger problem, but I'm curious how much leverage a state-wide union would have on a company the size of Amazon. Especially when Amazon doesn't want to set any bad precedents. Warehouse workers generally don't have huge rainy day funds.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why they need to ally with other big national unions. If the teamsters won't touch Amazon freight and the pipe fitters won't touch Amazon facilities on a national level due to a Georgia warehouse workers strike then they'll have leverage.
It'll be national in no time (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
All you are doing is stereotyping unions in the same way that people stereotype corporations.
In this case, both stereotypes have a strong basis in reality.
Re:You can bet (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't disagree with the idea behind unions. I disagree with the current implementation and practice that many unions perform.
Being that most Unions are an organization on their own, not an organization with representation of all the workers within the Union. The employee without any power or say what is happening in the company often will elect a Union where in practice the employee still doesn't have any power or say what is happening.
They may just want shorter hours, but the union negotiates better ov
Accurate..... (Score:2)
I'm sure the truth is in the middle and both sides will exaggerate. Pretty much a given.
The reason Amazon gets so much focus, though, has to do with their prevalence and total wealth. If they were just another logistics company out there, helping move products from point A to B -- nobody would really give them a second thought.
They're so pervasive in modern society though (especially with the increase in delivery orders that began w/COVID), they're doing the lion's share of hiring right now in many places
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unions have been replaced... (Score:1)
... big business has perfected the art of screwing unions...
I'm not so sure. Unions have been associated with organized crime so deeply that it's basically a trope. I have only belonged to a couple unions. My first experience was being told that my job was being incorporated into a union. The good news was my pay went up automatically by $0.80 an hour. The bad news was that union dues were going to eat up an equivalent of $1.20 an hour and I had no opt-out recourse.
At the local shipyard here, a rather large one, it's actually comical. During the day you see t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
That shit with the mafia connection, that went out decades ago when they went legit
Oh, so it's ok now. Unions only used to be linked with organized crime. They funded, aided and abetted rape, murder, drugs, and prostitution for a generation, but they are totally clean now. Well then, that's all right!
Just like how El Qaeda ran jet liners full of people into the twin towers, but fuck, that was like twenty years ago now, so let's all give them money too because they are surely on the side of angels now.
my union dues were maybe 2-3% of my gross pay
What was your gross pay? Let's call it 100k. So two to three thousand dollars a year.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm going to start a fake company (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
#putting #all #my #money #into #jfdavissolutions
Fair elections. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sure the next thing Amazon is going to do is claim these fake workers voted and therefore the vote was invalid
And just to set the record straight, a key provision in Right to Work is that everyone gets the benefit of the union but you have to opt in to pay dues. In my workplace there are a lot of conservative socialists who are happy to collect the thousands of dollars in COVID benefits the union has achieved, but feel it is beneath then to help pay the people who have negotiated those benefits.
Re: Fair elections. (Score:2, Informative)
And just to set the record straight, a key provision in Right to Work is that everyone
This is horseshit. Right to Work means that you can't be forced to join a Union or have dues collected from you. If you choose to not join, you aren't covered under any collective agreements and don't get any direct union benefits.
You may benefit by an employer making changes to overall workplace policies, but they can also maintain different policies for non union workers. Right to Work is usually only opposed by "weak" Unions who want to sit back and collect dues without doing anything to provide value.
Re: Fair elections. (Score:5, Informative)
But you DO get the payscale benefits, vacation/sick-leave benefits, health insurance benefits, and all the other things that the unions have negotiated and fought for. So you're a free-riding moocher and the hard workers in the union probably rightly hate your guts for being a moocher.
Re: (Score:1)
hard workers in the union
Best laugh of the day so far.
Re: (Score:3)
And just to set the record straight, a key provision in Right to Work is that everyone
This is horseshit. Right to Work means that you can't be forced to join a Union or have dues collected from you. If you choose to not join, you aren't covered under any collective agreements and don't get any direct union benefits.
You may benefit by an employer making changes to overall workplace policies, but they can also maintain different policies for non union workers. Right to Work is usually only opposed by "weak" Unions who want to sit back and collect dues without doing anything to provide value. Strong Unions have no fear of Right to Work laws because there's more value to joining the Union than standing alone.
So they screw around with the thermostat, unpaint the lunch rooms, replace the asbestos in the ceiling tiles, and put the rickety stairs back in just when the non-union workers are using them?
Re: (Score:2)
Strong Unions have no fear of Right to Work laws because there's more value to joining the Union than standing alone.
Strong unions buy politicians to make sure the state is not Right to Work.
Re: (Score:2)
I am not sure I am following you.
How is giving Free Beer (inciting them to get out and vote) where they wouldn't have gone to vote before, related to voter fraud?
You may be violating some local liquor laws. Also it may attract a particular demographic who may vote in a particular way. But you are not changing the vote nor challenging what the results would be if you didn't get your way.
If Amazon floods the ballets with fake voters (Very illegal) then claims the results if they lost anyways because they di
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
What you mean is: lazy, freeloading conservatives get the benefits of those who do the hard work, but don't have to contribute to what's making their lives better.
Remember when you were in high school and there was always the lazy moocher kid who free-rode off of others during "group project" time? That's what the advocates of "Right To Work" scammery are.
Re:Fair elections. (Score:5, Interesting)
In my workplace there are a lot of conservative socialists who are happy to collect the thousands of dollars in COVID benefits the union has achieved, but feel it is beneath then to help pay the people who have negotiated those benefits.
The real problem, IMO, is that unions are basically a bandaid for failed government. The wealthy ruling class has managed to trick workers into paying part of their salary to pay union staff to get their employers to do what they should have been required by law to do, which distracts the working class by giving them largely false hope that they will have some control over their destiny, and by so doing, discourages them from running for office and *actually* having such control.
Unions are almost never the answer. Government intervention is the answer. Raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour, mandate fractional health insurance for part-time workers, create a federal sick leave insurance pool similar to disability so that the risk is distributed equally, mandate unlimited sick leave up to the point where temporary disability kicks in, gradually reduce the work week to 30 hours over a period of five years, give more power to OSHA to put in place temporary regulations during a public health emergency and give them enough money to hire enough staff to do random drop-in inspections, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
In my workplace there are a lot of conservative socialists who are happy to collect the thousands of dollars in COVID benefits the union has achieved, but feel it is beneath then to help pay the people who have negotiated those benefits.
The real problem, IMO, is that unions are basically a bandaid for failed government. The wealthy ruling class has managed to trick workers into paying part of their salary to pay union staff to get their employers to do what they should have been required by law to do, which distracts the working class by giving them largely false hope that they will have some control over their destiny, and by so doing, discourages them from running for office and *actually* having such control.
Unions are almost never the answer. Government intervention is the answer. Raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour, mandate fractional health insurance for part-time workers, create a federal sick leave insurance pool similar to disability so that the risk is distributed equally, mandate unlimited sick leave up to the point where temporary disability kicks in, gradually reduce the work week to 30 hours over a period of five years, give more power to OSHA to put in place temporary regulations during a public health emergency and give them enough money to hire enough staff to do random drop-in inspections, etc.
The problem is that especially for a large employer, the employer has vastly more bargaining power than an employee. That's nothing to do with government policy, it's just economics. As such, employees can end up being subjected to really poor treatment.
The idea of the union is you create a second body that has bargaining power similar to the employer and that gives the employees protection.
It's not a perfect solution of course, unions can end up forcing the company to keep employing people who should have
Re: (Score:2)
In my workplace there are a lot of conservative socialists who are happy to collect the thousands of dollars in COVID benefits the union has achieved, but feel it is beneath then to help pay the people who have negotiated those benefits.
The real problem, IMO, is that unions are basically a bandaid for failed government. The wealthy ruling class has managed to trick workers into paying part of their salary to pay union staff to get their employers to do what they should have been required by law to do, which distracts the working class by giving them largely false hope that they will have some control over their destiny, and by so doing, discourages them from running for office and *actually* having such control.
Unions are almost never the answer. Government intervention is the answer. Raise the minimum wage to $25 per hour, mandate fractional health insurance for part-time workers, create a federal sick leave insurance pool similar to disability so that the risk is distributed equally, mandate unlimited sick leave up to the point where temporary disability kicks in, gradually reduce the work week to 30 hours over a period of five years, give more power to OSHA to put in place temporary regulations during a public health emergency and give them enough money to hire enough staff to do random drop-in inspections, etc.
The problem is that especially for a large employer, the employer has vastly more bargaining power than an employee. That's nothing to do with government policy, it's just economics. As such, employees can end up being subjected to really poor treatment.
But if employees are subjected to really poor treatment, I would argue that we're missing important labor laws. If the labor laws were adequate, the employee would just report an anonymous tip to the appropriate tip line, and the company would get spanked with massive fines.
The idea of the union is you create a second body that has bargaining power similar to the employer and that gives the employees protection.
The problem, of course, is that it also has vast power over the employees, which means it often degrades into archaic apprenticeship rules, or spanking other employees with a union grievance for doing something that's supposed to be som
Re: (Score:3)
That's ass-backward. It was unions that historically forced governments to adopt those worker-protection laws in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that they want dues 20 years after the negotiation that got you those benefits.
If your company is treating you badly, then just collectively bargain. You do not have to find some union contractor and pay them hundreds of millions over the next decade and give them nearly unlimited power over you and all your peers to do this.
They're on faceplant, too (Score:5, Informative)
Ran into one. Yeah, sure... and either it's a fraud, or she actively wants to be a freeloader.
Any of these frauds actually know how much union dues are? (I looked, and the best I can find, covering a bunch of unions, is not $500/mo, but about half that... PER YEAR). And if Amazon's so great, why 10 hour days, instead of the standard 8 hr day? No overtime, and the two extra hours are mandatory.
Re:They're on faceplant, too (Score:4, Informative)
Any of these frauds actually know how much union dues are? (I looked, and the best I can find, covering a bunch of unions, is not $500/mo, but about half that... PER YEAR). And if Amazon's so great, why 10 hour days, instead of the standard 8 hr day? No overtime, and the two extra hours are mandatory.
From https://www.rwdsu.info/duesauthorizationform1
The dues amount will be twice the hourly rate plus any assessments assigned by the local union. Non hourly members (commission, millage etc.) will be determined by the average hourly rate. (Total non-hourly average weekly pay divided by total non-hourly member’s average hours worked will equal the hourly rate. Twice the hourly rate plus any assessments assigned by the local).
What do Amazon warehouse workers make, $15/hr? $18/hr?
For someone making $18/hr, at twice the hourly rate their monthly due would be $36 ($432/yr) plus any assessments assigned by the local.
So it'll be close to $500 per year. Maybe they meant $500/yr when they wrote $500/mo?
Re: (Score:2)
If it's a 10 hour day without overtime then it's a 4 day week. I've had that schedule, and rather liked it. YMMV
If you're trying to say that they're making people work 50 hours and not paying overtime for the last 10 then that's a violation of Federal law (rammed through by the unions, BTW). Amazon management is not as stupid as Walmart's, they're not going to go to jail to make their site's budget look better and if they were the company would fire their ass as soon as someone higher in the food chain f
Re: (Score:2)
They don't know anything (Score:2)
You can easily tell it's fake (Score:3)
*This Post is intentionally facetious and best enjoyed when not taken at face value.
it's easy to imagine (Score:2)
piss bottle in one hand, smartphone tapping away on Twitter in the other.
Re: (Score:2)
ahhhh, the american dream
Re: (Score:3)
As an American, I find it an honor and a privilege to work a 10 hour shift but fill out my time sheet for only 8 hours.
Re: (Score:2)
hell ya brother!
On the road towards corproracracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
A hardened skeptic might assume... (Score:2)
It is in Amazon's own interests to deny any and all such accounts as belonging to real people.
Why trust any of them? (Score:2)
Why trust any of them?
Why trust some rando from the ether that you don't know?
Any of them could be equally bogus.
This goes for people on either side of the narrative.
Re: (Score:3)
Based on past behaviour, Amazon employees who used their own name on public media to support unionization would find themselves out of a job pretty quickly. What consequences do the creators of these fake accounts face? Bezos will give the bastards a raise.
Nice job comparing apples and oranges, though. You should send Jeff a resume.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon employees who used their own name on public media to support unionization would find themselves out of a job pretty quickly.
[citation needed]
Re: (Score:2)
Based on how Chris Smalls, Courtney Bowden and others were treated, plus the flood of information being provided to journalist Ken Klippenstein and subsequently published, I have to conclude that you don't really want a citation. You just want to be spoon fed information by other people who aren't too lazy or willfully ignorant to keep up with current affairs.
You can Google any of those names and find a mountain of data to satisfy your putative need for a citation. Get off your lazy ass and go get it, if
We need to find out who is doing this (Score:2)
While this is why anything on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt, we still need some responsible organization to look into who is creating these accounts. It could be Amazon, it could be workers trying to make Amazon look bad, it could be Russian trolls trying to drum-up discord in the US.
P.S. Is this union thing is going on in just the US? What is the status of Amazon workers in other nations?
Probably Really Work For Amazon, Just Not As Expec (Score:2)
These people probably really work for Amazon. I imagine they are being paid by Amazon, just not to stock shelves... I wouldn't call them "fake" workers, since they're doing very useful work for Amazon, really working!
Amazon Workers Already Have a "Union" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, you're thinking of Walmart. The FC workers in Alabama make $15/hr plus benefits their first day there, which is better than any other non-Teamsters warehouse job in the state.
And it's not "their own tax payer dollars", since Alabama (like almost all Red states) sucks down far more money from the US Gov't than they pay in. It's taxpayer dollars from those of us in the Blue states mostly.
Re: (Score:2)
It's taxpayer dollars from those of us in the Blue states mostly.
This is a whine we hear often from Democrats, but it's not entirely (or even mostly) true. Only four states contribute significantly more to the Federal budget [howmuch.net] than they get back (CT, NJ, NY and MA). The biggest winner by far in this game is VA.
Re: (Score:2)
It's taxpayer dollars from those of us in the Blue states mostly.
This is a whine we hear often from Democrats, but it's not entirely (or even mostly) true.
Red states are significantly more dependent on the federal government than Blue states. [wallethub.com] New Mexico is number 1, but after that, you don't get to a solidly Democratic state until Vermont at number 17. Maryland and Oregon are the only other solidly Democratic states in the top 25, with Maine (13) and Pennsylvania (15) being the only other Democratic-leaning states in the top 25.
Fake reviews (Score:2)
For a company whose basic service is founded in reviews, faking reviews calls to credibility its business model, mission, and leadership.
Re: (Score:2)
This doesn't sound like a company operation, far too crude and easily exposed. I'd be more inclined to believe some other anti-union operation, maybe Walmart HR worried about unionization spreading. (I work at Amazon, and you don't get into management if you're stupid enough to pull a stunt like that.)
I love Amazon (Score:3)
"I really like it when Amazon forces us to work long hours with only a few bathroom breaks" - Bot 59
"I love Amazons policy on camera's in the bathroom, I never really felt secure until they were installed" - Bot 27
"Unions decrease pay and hurt their workers, don't join a union" - Bot 42
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Oh look, another one who thinks we're still on the Gold Standard, and thinks his taxes back up the dollar.
Hint: neither one of those statements is true. The dollar is backed by the "Full faith and trust of the US Government" and they are the only ones who are authorized to make the dollars that you pay your taxes with.The only reason the Feds collect taxes is to shape domestic policy, they don't actually need your money to function.
The thing I love about the right wing nutjobs is that they are totally OK wi
Don't put it in quotes. They are fake. (Score:2)
It's not like they are fake fake Amazon workers.
BTW: Never forget: this is the level of evil we're dealing with here. More fitting for a psychopathic movie supervillain than a human.
Do not underestimate them. And beware of them gaslighting you with "It can't be real. It must be a conspiracy theory.".
(Unless of course it actually is. But then, so was Prism/XKeyScore. Was.)
Amazon vs. employees (Score:1)
Absolutely par for the course. (Score:2)