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A comment on Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers who try to form unions. Parent comment

Re:Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers wh... by mytailorisrich on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:13PM (#25291324)
At the same time in most Western countries decent working conditions and wages are already mandated by law. I don't know what's the situation in the US but in Europe that means that conditions cannot be horrible to start with if the company acts within the law (which would be expected of a company like Amazon, but maybe I'm optimistic).

Unions are a way to negotiate a better deal than the legal minimum for unskilled labour.

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Re:Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers wh... by ska on Thursday December 03, 2020 @12:47PM (#25291907)
> At the same time in most Western countries decent working conditions and wages are already mandated by law

Are they though? There are a plethora of activist, legal, legislative groups focused on both working conditions (often on narrower groups, like say migrant farm labor) and minimum wage issues would probably argue this.

Obviously working condition protections are much better than they were before 1950s-ish, and the existence of a minimum wage is greater than zero (where applicable). But neither of those inherently meet a bar as fuzzy as "decent".

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Re:Amazon reportedly has Pinkerton agents surveil workers wh... by mytailorisrich on Thursday December 03, 2020 @02:41PM (#25293608)
> here are a plethora of activist, legal, legislative groups focused on both working conditions (often on narrower groups, like say migrant farm labor) and minimum wage issues would probably argue this.

That's right and most of their work in Western Europe is helping workers enforce the law.

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