“Apple believes that, thanks in part to the power of technology, it ought to be easier than ever for every eligible citizen to exercise their right to vote.
Tim Cook, on behalf of Apple
Meanwhile, in Alabama, Amazon workers appear to be decisively voting against unionizing a distribution center.
Apple, Coke, Microsoft, Delta, JPMorgan, Citigroup and other companies took a side. The vote in Alabama is a body blow to unionization. The two things are related.
Democratic officeholders, most notably Joe Biden, speak of unions as a way to adjust the balance of economic power in America. "Unions built the middle class," Biden said in every stump speech I saw. He said unions are the way America can bring back "family wage" jobs. Workers in Alabama are voting two-to-one against that path. If a union cannot win a vote against a trillion-dollar company understood to be earning billions of dollars every month, a company eating the lunch of every competitor and clearly having vast profits to allocate, when and where can they win?
Probably nowhere. Amazon--and other businesses that could afford unions but don't want them--has too much credibility when they say their workers don't need a union to assure good pay and working conditions. Amazon would be fair and reasonable. Don't rock the boat. Besides you cannot trust unions or the government not to screw you over.
Businesses still have credibility. Their brands are an asset and the leaders of companies are protecting that asset. The companies reflect the values of the great American political center. They represent the people better than the politicians do. They are "elected" in the vast marketplace, at large. They are addressing the thoughts and voices of the people they need to remain great companies: Young people, people of color, immigrants, urban people, people with money to spend, educated people, people who live where the money is being made in this country. Great companies need those people as customers and as workers. They cannot afford to be prejudiced against immigrants. Too many of their key employees are immigrants.
Stories circulate about abusive bank practices, drug price gouging, tech monopoly abuse. True. They are flawed institutions amid even worse ones. Unions, religious institutions, the news media, academia, and experts generally are all suspect. Government is the least trusted of all: Corrupted, gridlocked, hypocritical, and ineffective.
Managers in the C-Suites of these companies did not need to be dragged reluctantly to speak out. They are white males, yes, but they are also educated, urban, and surrounded by diversity. Their values aren't reflected by a Republican Georgia legislature responding to Trump's allegations. The Georgia legislature is the stodgy past.
Young people want Apple to be a cool, modern, enlightened company. Senior citizens may dominate the ballot box and rally in MAGA hats, but the present and future isn't with the Archie Bunker crowd. Were Archie Bunker real, his grandchildren would be in their 30s and 40s now, buying Apple products. For Apple to be on the leading edge creating high status products, it need to hire and retain young, smart, educated people, some of whom will be immigrants and people of color. Apple's employees do not want a blind eye turned to a Georgia tradition of Black voter suppression via innocent-sounding subterfuges.
It may be the countryside of Trump and nearly a majority in the electoral college, but the people and economic energy belong to those blue specks on the map.
Politicians, whose job it is to ascertain and express the popular will, are failing at it. The companies succeeding in the economic marketplace are the ones giving people what they want. You click on an item in the gigantic Amazon website and two days later, or maybe next day, it is on your doorstep. Apple products are elegant and they work. Meanwhile, the U.S. senate is frozen while someone reads aloud a thousand page bill, per the demand of a senator.
Who would you trust?
Amazon workers don't think they need a union to protect their interests. Amazon seems competent and they get the job done.
3 comments:
Having lived in the South I can think of other factors that affected the vote, not the least of which was borderline intimidation from Amazon.
"The union is now filing a legal challenge to the election and charges of unfair labor practices against Amazon. It's requesting a hearing by the National Labor Relations Board, "to determine if the results of the election should be set aside because conduct by the employer created an atmosphere of confusion, coercion and/or fear of reprisals and thus interfered with the employees' freedom of choice." - NPR
There's a reason the facility is Alabama. If it's the only decent job available a worker is not going to risk losing it. Along with abortion and gay bashing, Republicans have demonized unions for a century. It's the same fear mongering that obstructs raising the minimum wage. BTW, Alabama is one of five states that hasn't adopted a state minimum wage law, so it adheres to the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which hasn't changed since 2009.
Union participation has been declining. De-unionization in the US has occurred alongside rising inequality, and some economists have suggested a causal link between the two phenomena:
One 2011 paper from researchers at Harvard and the University of Washington estimated that "the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality" in hourly wages.
In the 1970s, coal companies used the KKK (yes, guys in sheets) to divide black and white miners to keep them from, in solidarity, standing up to the coal companies. Just sayin......
Read “Nomadland” and then tell me all about the wonderful benefits of working for Amazon. Use up the worker and then throw them away.
Turning people to machines through constant monitoring.
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