Felix Stalder on 10 Feb 2001 21:04:59 -0000 |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> More on Amazon |
http://www.tnr.com/021901/cohn021901_print.html The New Republic has a very interesting (but very long) article on how Amazon turned from a freewheeling Internet pioneer (individual responsibility, flat hierarchies etc) into a manager-controlled, regimented company. The article is mostly about how these changes affected workers and created the atmosphere for unionization. Below is a what happened inside Amazon once the union was announced: " The workers who had attended the Day 2 meeting earlier in the week had a rather different reaction. As it happened, one of the promotional materials WashTech had circulated was an old yellow pamphlet titled "Our Boss Said We Didn't Need a Union ... What Will Yours Say?" With its photos of men with wide lapels, bushy mustaches, and Afros, it looked like something that had been printed in the 1970s--something, as Buss puts it, "so corny the Brady Bunch wouldn't get near it." Yet, sure enough, just about every argument Amazon supervisors had made against the union was right there in the pamphlet, along with a rejoinder. Amazon, the great Internet pioneer, was literally taking a page from the '70s anti-union playbook. "There was more support right after that meeting than any other time, because employees realized that management was trying to scare us," said Tricia Phillips, a senior member of the customer service department. "It was really insulting. It was like being in elementary school." It was only the beginning of Amazon's campaign against the union. Mindful of their public image, Amazon officials kept their appeals in the press high-minded: "We think there's a role for unions in society," Bezos told CNN, "but we don't think we need them at Amazon.com." Inside, they were less delicate. They distributed pamphlets that said, "Be Smart. Don't Sign a Union Card," and they set up an internal website alerting supervisors to warning signs that workers might be plotting to organize. Among those listed: "hushed conversations when you approach which have not occurred before," or "small group huddles breaking up in silence on the approach of the supervisor," or excessive time spent in the rest rooms. The material was meant for management only, but it found its way into the hands of The New York Times, which called the site "a rare internal glimpse at how a company is fighting off a union." " --------------------++----- Les faits sont faits. http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/~stalder _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold