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Unionization Wave 'Swelling' in Seattle, with Votes at Local Verizon, Amazon Fresh, and Starbucks Stores (seattletimes.com) 103

Posted by EditorDavid from the workers-uniting dept.
The Seattle Times surveys the landscape after a historic unionization vote at an Amazon warehouse in New York — and finds the same sentiments are spurring activism by workers three timezones away: As the world watched thousands of Amazon warehouse workers in New York form on Friday the company's first U.S. union, a handful of employees of a Seattle thrift store celebrated their own victory. Sixteen workers at Crossroads Trading Co. in search of higher wages, more hours and better benefits voted unanimously Wednesday to form a union at the chain's store in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Organizers at Crossroads said they built off the momentum and union support in the neighborhood from another successful union drive at a Starbucks store just a few blocks away.

Now, a group of security workers who have contracts with Amazon, Microsoft and Sound Transit are taking a similar tack, hoping to use the swell of enthusiasm created by Amazon workers in Staten Island to bring more workers in Seattle into the union fold....

Since Amazon Labor Union started organizing — unofficially with a walkout in 2020 in protest of the company's treatment of workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic — the union wave appears to have swelled in the Seattle area. A group of workers at an Amazon Fresh store in Seattle's Central District organized to form Amazon Workers United, and now three more stores in the area are starting their own drives, according to organizer Joseph Fink. Workers at Verizon retail stores in Everett and Lynnwood are currently casting votes in a union election. Ballots were sent to workers in March and votes will be counted this month. In Seattle, a Starbucks retail store on Capitol Hill became the first unionized store in the region....

Watching workers at companies including Starbucks and Amazon face anti-union tactics did stoke fears of retaliation for union efforts at Crossroads, said Emma Mudd, a sales associate and one of the lead union organizers. But it exposed the playbook that companies might follow — and showed what workers could do to push back, engage one another and put public pressure on the company.

"It was helpful to have tangible examples, because we did have conversations to prepare for union busting," Mudd said. "It was really helpful to see how those workers were able to push through it."
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Unionization Wave 'Swelling' in Seattle, with Votes at Local Verizon, Amazon Fresh, and Starbucks Stores More

Unionization Wave 'Swelling' in Seattle, with Votes at Local Verizon, Amazon Fresh, and Starbucks Stores

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  • Surprises for everyone (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dbrueck ( 1872018 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @10:57AM (#62413230)

    Real wages have not kept pace with inflation, so this may be an effective way to correct some of that.

    At the same time, it seems a lot of workers don't understand the first thing about how businesses work and/or they wildly overestimate the value they provide, and as such think unionization is going to lead to piles more money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Amazon Fresh and Starbucks are special cases. They have pricing power and can easily transfer their added costs to the customers. If they are smart, they'll itemize that additional cost on each sales receipt. Just like sales tax.

      • Re:Surprises for everyone (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @11:46AM (#62413298)

        Or, just hear me out on this one. Companies could give some profits back to their most important asset, the employees? Wages are certainly not following the rise of profits.

        • Re:Surprises for everyone (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Virtucon ( 127420 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @11:48AM (#62413304)

          "Employees are our greatest asset" is lip service. You can be replaced with another drone at their discretion.

          • I'm a precious irreplaceable snowflake and this company would collapse without me! *




            *This is a real thing anti-Union people believe.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          I'm a shareholder. I want to get paid out of those profits first.

          On the other hand, I am happy about that major jump in AMZN [yahoo.com] share prices when "I did that" Joe took office. If you really want to find out where those company profits are going, just take a look at who [nypost.com] is standing at the head of the line with their hands out.

          • I want to get paid out of those profits first ... If you really want to find out where those company profits are going, just take a look at who is standing at the head of the line with their hands out.

            Capitalism still works when instead that attitude takes a back seat. In fact, it works better.

          • There'll be less of them per share after operating costs -- e.g., salaries, healthcare, etc -- are take care of. But yes! Shareholders will get paid out of *profits* first.
        • Employees only want compensation based on company profits when company makes a lot of profit. When company makes little profit or lose money, their attitude changes from "we are responsible for the company profit" to "we are not responsible for company loses". I also think there would be plenty of outrage if some companies started mandatory stock purchase plans (part of your paycheck is in stocks, so you share in company performance).

          • Employees only want compensation based on company profits when company makes a lot of profit. When company makes little profit or lose money, their attitude changes from "we are responsible for the company profit" to "we are not responsible for company loses

            And nowhere is that more true than the C-suite. Top level executives are rewarded even if (or sometimes specifically for) running a company into the ground.

        • Should employees give money back to their employer if the company is losing money? Or is it a one way street here?

          I get it's hard and takes work to leave a job when you have no marketable job skills. My first job I worked my way up to General Manager at our city's largest movie theater and made around $7 an hour (this was when minimum wage was 5.15). It was easier to stay there and bitch about my unfair wage then to find a better job.

        • The value of labor has nothing to do with profits.

    • Real wages never keep pace with inflation. It will be a good way to breathe a breath of fresh air into union corruption and influence peddling.

      • What corruption? (Score:3, Informative)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
        there hasn't been corruption in Unions since the 70s. Yes, there was a bit when the mob got involved. You know why the mob was involved? mega corps were using strike breakers and Unions needed their own muscle. Without a lot of options they went to the mob.

        By the 80s there were cameras that could record when the strike breakers busted heads. That meant no more need for the mob, and after a few rounds of arrests the problem went away.

        Of course thanks to Reagan so did Unions. [compactmag.com] But that's besides the po

        • there hasn't been corruption in Unions since the 70s.

          Uh yeah. [nbcnewyork.com]
          Tell me again how corruption isn't a part of the Union leadership job description. [usnews.com]

          There are crooks everywhere but unions seem to attract more in leadership roles.

    • better labor laws can help and fake 1099'ers needs to end.

      It's not just pay but us labor laws are behind the EU

      • So I started reading comments and thought to myself why not socialize all businesses and make all workers join unions. And here you are. When ever a person starts a business and gets a business license the type of business determines which unions the workers will belong to.

        All workers, all...workers, have to belong to a union. No right to work states, no owner operators. No self employment or contractors. The kid with a push mower will have to join a union. Baby sitter, pool cleaner, dog walker, all uni

    • Seems like you're also in need of a little business 101 instruction: In wage negotiations, all the workers are doing is demanding a fairer share of the profits, rather than it all going on dividends & share buy-backs. The price of Amazon's products/services & Starbuck's coffee isn't set by how much they pay their workers, it's set by what they think their customers are willing to pay & what will generate the highest profits overall. Actually read any undergraduate business studies book & it'

      • Re:Surprises for everyone (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dbrueck ( 1872018 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @06:09PM (#62414226)

        Seems like you're also in need of a little business 101 instruction

        Your comment would have been better if you had just tried to make a point without trying to make it into a "dig" on me, especially since in doing so you've made some incorrect assumptions about me.

        In wage negotiations, all the workers are doing is demanding a fairer share of the profits

        Hehe, this is sometimes true but often not true at all.

        Also, "fair" is such an interesting choice of words and kinda reinforces my point. While I do assume in the specific case of Amazon, it could afford to give many of its workers some sort of a raise, even then it's not entirely clear cut what a "fairer share of the profits" would even look like. Are we talking gross profits or net profits? Both can provide a distorted picture of what is "fair" and neither tells the full story.

        And either way, if you don't have any long term strategy, don't care about future growth, don't care about investors (especially those who were still willing to bet on your company when it was losing millions every quarter), don't have to worry about competition, don't care about more innovation, don't have to worry about weathering economic downturns, etc., etc. then it's easy to look at the balance sheet and say, "that should go to the workers". But even if you get that far, should every worker get the same increase? Should it be proportional to their current pay? Should it be related at all to the value they actually provide? (and if so, who determines that and how?)

        FWIW I like companies that are generous to even the lowest-rung employees, and I guess for some people it's satisfying to imagine all companies being run by Scrooge McDuck swimming in gold, but the reality is far more complicated.

      • Seems like you're also in need of a little business 101 instruction: In wage negotiations, all the workers are doing is demanding a fairer share of the profits,

        People want the most they can make. Using the excuse that the company makes profits is just a tactic to not loot greedy and plays the part of victim.

        If it was really a symbiotic relationship where workers took part in success and failure, then they would also willingly take pay reductions when there were no profits.

        • You mean when the executives pay themselves orders of magnitude more than their lowest paid workers? & who's "making the excuse that a company makes profits"? I said negotiating for a fairer share of the profits. Did you know that there are large corporations in the world where the workers own the company & hire & fire the executives? Guess what the differences in pay & benefits between the lowest paid workers & the executives are. & yes, they're profitable & they also tend to do
    • This is the draw of unions. No one person is irreplaceable, not even the stuffed suits that run the place. But try to stay in business with no drones.

      People are tired of doing shit jobs for shit wages and watching the spoils go to the top 1% who essentially do nothing but absorb resources.

      This system was traditionally possible because there was always more drones than jobs and the companies controlled virtually all of the information which employees received about the company. Thanks to technology

  • It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @11:31AM (#62413282)
    CEO pay has increased 1322% since 1978, while worker wages have stagnated, benefits slashed, retirement programs axed, and jobs offshored.
    https://www.epi.org/publicatio... [epi.org]
    It’s time the workers get a piece of the record profits produced from their labor. During the time of COVID, when millions of workers lost their jobs, billionaires increased their net worth by $8 TRILLION dollars (2020-2021) in a single year. https://www.forbes.com/billion... [forbes.com]
    Funny how federal dollars handed to business is deemed "stimulus", even when workers are laid off. Yet when pittance token dollars are given directly to the citizenry, it's villainized as feeding the lazy or a budgetary burden. The wealth gap between have's and have nots exceeds the gilded age and has not been this perverse since the time of the Pharos. A reckoning is coming.

    • A co-worker of mine once complained about how much the CEO and President of the company, both of whom started the company, earn. I did the math and if all of their compensation, including stock dividends and bonuses, were distributed to all the employees equally, we'd all get a $240 per year raise. If you included all of the executives it would be another $100 or so. It would be a fraction of a percent. It wouldn't have covered inflation back then, much less now.

      I agree with you that CEOs are overpaid, but

      • Re:Distribution (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @11:51AM (#62413316)
        The CEO of Kroger grocery stores makes 900X an average workers salary. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $189B... put in perspective, in the gilded age, the Andrew Carnegie would have a net worth today of $11B. CEO pay went up 19% 2021 of 2020... What was your raise last year? Lose any benefits over the past several years?
        • The person who is responsible for overseeing a national grocery chain is probably worth 900X the value of the average employee. If the CEO fucks up badly enough the entire company could go out of business. That's a bit extreme and not likely to happen instantaneously, but companies go out of business all the time. If one of the workers screws up, some cans wind up on the wrong shelf. The consequences are much lower. The biggest problem is that it's hard to tell how well a C-suite executive is really doing.

          • And what is the consequence to a CEO if the screw up, lets say the loose there job without some sort of golden parachute? They have got more money in one year than the employee would have got in a life time. A CEO doesn't bare any more personal risk than a employee. Paying someone more doesn't mean they are less likely to screw up. And CEO screw up as well they usually are very good a blaming other people, most screw ups CEO does don't end a company especially if it is already highly successful.

      • and don't forget, all the profit is made from the labor of workers.

      • > but distributing their pay back to the other workers usually doesn't make that much of a difference

        That's only true on paper, in reality the scope of changes that will follow from bringing a company's highest levels workers' total compensation packages to within a more reasonable multiple of the lowest worker's total compensation package are much larger than that, and have much more profound effects. Like on productivity to name just one.

      • So what you're saying is that the CEO made 2.4 times the combined compensation of all of the other executives. How many executives are we talking about here?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ljw1004 ( 764174 )

        A co-worker of mine once complained about how much the CEO and President of the company, both of whom started the company, earn. I did the math and if all of their compensation, including stock dividends and bonuses, were distributed to all the employees equally, we'd all get a $240 per year raise.

        Dear employees, are you willing please to donate 0.5% of your salary to the CEO so they can afford a second megayacht? Ha ha, just kidding, you don't get any choice and we're doing it anyway.

    • Blame the board of directors who give out bonuses, cheaply priced stock options, and other incentives for performance objectives like laying off 10% of the workforce while increasing productivity by 12%. Consider the case of American Airlines in bankruptcy. Then CEO Tom Horton was going to be granted a $20m bonus for navigating the airline through the process by the board of directors as part of the official proceedings. The Bankruptcy judge, said no. Once the bankruptcy was closed out, the board went ahe

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by kenh ( 9056 )

        Right, why should a CEO that turns around a bankrupt airline and keeps tens of thousands of employees working get a bonus? Perhaps the board of directors felt saving the airline from liquidation was worth $20M once they were out of bankruptcy - if he failed, what would he have gotten? Not $20M, that's for sure.

    • Re:It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @12:41PM (#62413408)

      CEO pay has increased 1322% since 1978

      Only if you cherry-pick a specific segment of CEOs as your link does.

      while worker wages have stagnated

      Worker wages have soared more than 400% over the same period.

      Wages have only stagnated if they are adjusted for inflation. But since you didn't adjust the CEO salaries for inflation, you are not being honest if you don't do the same for wages.

      The disparity between executive pay and hourly wages is a serious problem. There is no need to exaggerate and mislead.

      • When we say "CEO" we all know what we mean. We mean "CEO of mega corporations".

        Yeah, the CEO of Bob's Plumbing in Burbank, Idaho is, technically, a CEO, but Bob doesn't wield power on a global scale or write the laws our Congress passes.
        • No we don't. Quit being disingenuous with your arguments. It just makes you as morally bankrupt as you think these mega corporation CEOs are. You're essentially admitting to being misleading. Why should anyone take any of what you say seriously?

          If you think that there should be no difference in how the CEO of a small company in a single city should be compensated compared to one that's overseeing a vast multinational company doing business around the entire world and employing and overseeing orders of ma
          • Nobody means the CEO of a small or even mid-sized company when they say the letters CEO. We are explicitly referring to elite CEOs who have significant control over public and monetary policy.

            The reason there's a difference between the CEO of a megacorp and the CEO of a mid-sized company is that the CEO of a mid-sized company doesn't get invited to the White House and doesn't have so much money that he can buy off 2/3 of Congress to pass laws nobody wants past except him.

            CEO is what we call kings a

            • We are explicitly referring to elite CEOs

              If you mean "elite CEOs" you should have said so, and you should define what counts as "elite". Top 100? Top 500? The article you linked uses the top 350. Why 350? Because they went down the list of CEO salaries and found that a cutoff at 350 gives the "scariest" number. Obvious, that is an attempt to mislead rather than illuminate.

              Using nominal dollars for CEO salaries while using inflation-adjusted dollars for wages magnifies the gap by a factor of 4. That isn't just misleading, it is outright lying.

              • it's well understood by everyone. Including you. You're just trying (successfully) to derail the conversation. Good job I guess. Hope you got paid for it.

                • it's well understood by everyone. Including you.

                  It is not understood and is not even true. CEOs at all levels are doing well. Starting and running a small business is the most common way for Americans to become rich. You are trying to frame this as 350 rich guys versus "the rest of us", which is nonsense.

                  Since the 1970s, real (inflation-adjusted) wages have declined for the bottom 20%, stagnated for the next 20%, but have risen significantly for the top 60%, who are mostly college-educated salaried workers. It is not the top 0.01% vs. the 99.99% but rath

        • When we say "CEO" we all know what we mean. We mean "CEO of mega corporations".

          I, for one, did not know you meant that. I've heard that (or a very close) stat repeated many times, and never knew it was misleading in this way, which is almost certainly deliberate.

          Nor did I know about the one-sided use of inflation adjustment, which sinks the whole talking point to the level of an outright lie.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by kenh ( 9056 )

            Nor did I know about the one-sided use of inflation adjustment, which sinks the whole talking point to the level of an outright lie.

            Exactly. This type of misleading bullshit, spewed by folks merely regurgitating meme talking-points without questioning what they read/repeated.

            The easiest way to disprove thisBS is track the federal minimum wage from 1978 to 2022, it hasn't "stagnated"

        • Are you also only including wages of workers from those mega corps?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Money that keeps people working has more value than simply handing workers money... it's "teach a man to fish" kinda hung.

      Now as I recall the complaints about checks sent to individuals were of two major types - those that thought it wasn't enough (how can a family of four in Manhattan live on $3,500 during apandemic?) and those who thought it was wasteful to send out $3,500 to every American that ever filed an income tax return regardless of their employment situation, need, or anything. (Why, it's almost

  • Corruption on top of curruption (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure what benefit is gained by piling more corruption on top of a corrupted system. It's bandaids stuck on top of bandaids.

    Peal all the bandaids off, debride (this will hurt), and start over.

  • The offshore sweatshops and automation industries wish unionization well.

    It's better to provide free training for jobs that are difficult to automate and have long term income: Electricians, welders, plumbers, HVAC techs, machinists, nursing, etc

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jodido ( 1052890 )
      "It's better..." for who? If it's better for the employers, why don't they do it? Are they stupid? Are they short-sighted? I don't think so, I think they know exactly what's best for their class interests, and paying workers more, either in wages or working conditions, is not. That's why there's such a staggering imbalance in pay and living conditions between the employing class and their technoservants on the one hand and the working class on the other.

    • "Electricians, welders, plumbers, HVAC techs, machinists, nursing"

      I.e. Union jobs

  • Can't wait to see how it works out.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Unionizing crappy jobs doesn't make them stop being crappy, and it is possible for a union to price itself out of a job.

      Remember the Hostess Baker's union strike? Hostess shut down, 18,000 employees lost their jobs, and the new owners of the Brad were non-union...

      https://www.cnbc.com/id/100678... [cnbc.com]

  • Higher wages and better working conditions help Union and non-Union alike.

    When people's pay gets cut or eaten by 30 years of wage stagnation to the point where they can't keep a roof over their heads they don't just say "welp, time to eat a bullet). They look for better paying jobs. Your jobs.

    Sure, most of them wash out, but a lot of them don't. And don't think your boss hasn't noticed [newser.com]. Even if he doesn't fire you and replace you with somebody younger and cheaper what do you think is gonna go throug

  • Management is always "organized" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Sunday April 03, 2022 @01:59PM (#62413582) Homepage

    ...and we all know that an organized group is at huge advantage over a disorganized one.

    Americans always argue politics as if America were a separate planet, you rarely hear other perspectives raised. America is particularly low in unionization. Even nearby Canada, much influenced by your culture and even more by your economy, somehow manages to be a competitor, selling at competitive prices, and good place to send work to, is much more unionized than the USA. Germany more so again, and nobody disparages their productivity.

    If unionization were as inimical as the opponents say, then America would obviously be outcompeting more-unionized nations. They're not. They do well, but not particularly so.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kenh ( 9056 )

      Even nearby Canada, much influenced by your culture and even more by your economy, somehow manages to be a competitor, selling at competitive prices, and good place to send work to, is much more unionized than the USA. Germany more so again, and nobody disparages their productivity.

      Is it possible that when GM or Chrysler manufactures automobile engines in Canada they enjoy certain tax advantages that a domestic Canadian car company wouldn't be entitled to? Or when a Foxconn plant in Mexico sends laptops into America, they enjoy lower wages and no import fees? Or do you think NAFTA has no influence on propping up our Canadian and Mexican neighbor'seconomies?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rbrander ( 73222 )

        NAFTA is dead, it was renegotiated by Trump. He made the usual Trump-noises about how bad NAFTA was for America, but then the renegotiation was almost invisible. Example: his favourite topic was the protectionism of Quebec milk farms. The old version held America down to 3.25% of the market, or something, and the new version, was 3.6%. Nearly all the other changes were similarly-minor tweaks.

        Your thesis requires that American trade negotiators walk into negotiations with the huge advantage of having 9

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Even nearby Canada, ... somehow manages to be a competitor, selling at competitive prices,much influenced by your culture and even more by your economy,

      I've seen their prices. And the long lines of BC license plates lined up at the Bellingham, Washington Costco.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rbrander ( 73222 )

        Not remotely my point. The point was that highly-unionized countries fare well on the global productivity index in terms of $/hour-of-work, so unionism cannot be automatically associated with lowered productivity.

        The fact that some products are cheaper across a border, creating lineup for SOME products, is irrelevant. Many things are also cheaper in Mexico, people go there just to buy them, but that hasn't cranked up a movement to make America's economy more like Mexico's.

  • Now at least there's one potentially good reason to move to Seattle.
  • Unions are a good way to protect workers in stable industries that benefit from discretionary income. Well-paid workers in such industries grow the consumer base of their own employers, while poorly-paid ones erode it (a phenomenon that had a lot to do with the Great Depression). Retail and mid-to-low-tech manufacturing are ideal for unionization.

    There are some qualifiers though. In higher-tech settings, unions achieve worker protection at the cost of agility. And that's a valid tradeoff for big, wel
  • while you can.

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