Amazon dislikes labor unions, a lot

The Washington Post writes:

Amazon calls cops, fires workers in attempts to stop unionization nationwide

As Amazon prepares to argue that the union victory in Staten Island should be overturned, employees around the country are accusing the company of using illegal anti-union tactics

Employees at Amazon facilities around the country whose union hopes were buoyed by the labor victory at a warehouse in Staten Island in April say in labor board filings and interviews that the company has been calling police, firing workers and generally cracking down on labor organizing since that historic win. Amazon has been accused of illegally firing workers in Chicago, New York and Ohio, calling the police on workers in Kentucky and New York, and retaliating against workers in New York and Pennsylvania, in what workers say is an escalation of long-running union-busting activities by the company.

On Monday morning, lawyers representing Amazon argued that representatives from the NLRB’s [National Labor Relations Board] Brooklyn office should be excluded from the proceedings entirely. Previously, Amazon had filed a motion requesting that the general public, including the media, should be barred from attending the hearing, but a labor board judge denied the motion last week.

In its opening statement, Amazon argued that both the union and the regional office of the NLRB that conducted the election acted in ways that unfairly turned the election in the union’s favor. The union, Amazon argued, intimidated, coerced and surveilled employees as they voted, specifically citing the “loitering” of union president Chris Smalls outside the voting tent. Lawyers for the union said the use of the word loitering, and implication that workers were afraid of Smalls, who is Black, had racial implications.

Eric Milner, a lawyer representing the Amazon Labor Union, called the company’s objections to the election “a frivolous sideshow.” Union lawyers tried and failed to have a slew of Amazon’s objections dismissed earlier on Monday.

In his opening statement, Milner denied Amazon’s claims that the union intimidated workers, saying that “if anything, the evidence is going to show that employees were afraid of and felt coerced by Amazon, not the ALU.”

He also defended the NLRB’s conduct. “It’s not Region 29’s fault that Amazon breaks too many laws to keep up with,” he said. “Amazon doesn’t get to sit here and flagrantly violate labor law and then claim bias when the agency investigating those laws decides to do their job.”

So here we go again. Another dispute with capitalism against labor, or labor against capitalism if that’s preferable. Who is lying and who is truth telling, if anyone? 

And not surprisingly, the company wanted to fight in darkness by keeping the media and public from witnessing the dispute. That tactic, along with historical animosity of capitalists toward labor, suggests to me that Amazon has things to hide and they aren’t nice and/or legal. So my starting assumption is that Amazon broke laws in its effort to prevent unionization of its facilities. If evidence comes to light that Amazon didn't engage in illegal activities, then that opinion will need to be reassessed and maybe reversed. 

HILARIOUS!

OR maybe not hilarious, but something else, YOU decide.

 Watch the following video, particularly from the 4:15 minute mark on.

SHORTER VERSION:

https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1535292815453786112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1535292815453786112%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdefendingthetruth.com%2Fthreads%2Fwhite-lives-matter.134619%2F

Violence is acceptable tactics: White neo-fascists threaten death to police officers

The kerfuffle up in Coeur d’Alene, ID has led to neo-fascist death threats to the local police. As discussed here two days ago, 31 neo-fascists were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to riot at a gay pride event there. NBC News writes:

Idaho police said they've received death threats since arresting 31 men affiliated with white nationalist group Patriot Front near an annual LGBTQ+ event over the weekend.

Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White spoke to reporters Monday, saying that his department has fielded about 149 calls in the aftermath of the arrests. He said about 50 percent of the calls have been praise from the community, who offer their names and express pride in the department.

“And the other 50 percent — who are completely anonymous, who want nothing more than to scream and yell at us and use some really choice words — offer death threats against myself and other members of the police department merely for doing our jobs,” White said. “Those people obviously remain anonymous.”

Officers have also received threats of doxxing, a practice in which someone publishes personal information such as phone numbers or addresses online, White said. The majority of the threats being made appear to be from outside the Coeur d’Alene community, according to the chief.

Coeur d’Alene police with arrested neo-fascists

This is yet more evidence of the acceptability of violence to America's radical right and the Republican Party generally. As the 1/6 Committee hearings have pointed out, the ex-president said that he believed the people in the coup attempt who called for Pence to be hanged had the right idea. No wonder the GOP embraces violence and death threats when they don't like the way things go for them. 

From the Republican Party point of view, those 31 White supremacists were merely engaging in legitimate political discourse, not conspiring to break any laws or to riot or to kill anyone. As the RNC nicely put it about violence on their own side, the 1/6 coup attempt was just some innocent patriots engaging in harmless “legitimate political discourse.”[1]

Footnote: 

1. Washington Post on Feb. 8, 2022:

When the Republican Party voted to censure two of its own members of Congress last week at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City, it justified the move in part by declaring that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection amounted to the persecution of individuals engaging in “legitimate political discourse.”

John Oliver talks about tech monopolies

In this 26:49 video, John Oliver talks about monopolies and how they fight hard and dirty top protect their profits and markets from competition. He starts with some brief comments about the breakup of Standard Oil and AT&T, then moves on to Apple, Google and Amazon.

Although the video is long, it is well worth the time. It's about as funny as a serious talk about the power and poison of monopolies can be. There's some pretty funny commentary here, including a brief but great digression into the intelligent evil and malice of dolphins.

Given the power of monopoly money to subvert and corrupt our broken congress, two narrow bills pending in congress intended to partly defang the tech giants probably won't pass. They are the Open App Markets Act and the American Choice and Innovation Online Act. As usual, conflicts of interest and ethical sleaze are all over the place with congress. Schumer's daughters work for Amazon. That says it all. Those two bills are probably dead, probably leaving us screwed.