Amazon and SpaceX are quietly trying to demolish national labor law — American workers could lose workplace protections that they’ve had for almost a century (techcrunch.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 06:00
https://lemmy.world/post/12334035

Amazon and SpaceX are quietly trying to demolish national labor law — American workers could lose workplace protections that they’ve had for almost a century::Amazon alleged in a legal filing published Friday morning that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional. SpaceX and Trader Joe’s –

#technology

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autotldr@lemmings.world on 24 Feb 2024 06:00 next collapse

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Amazon alleged in a legal filing published Friday morning that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional.

SpaceX and Trader Joe’s — companies that, like Amazon, have repeatedly faced labor law violations from the federal agency — have recently made similar attacks that threaten national worker protections.

If these threats against the NLRB keep moving forward, American workers could lose workplace protections that they’ve had for almost a century.

“It’s a crock of s–t,” said Seth Goldstein, the legal counsel for Trader Joe’s United and the Amazon Labor Union.

Amazon claims that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional because administrative law judges are “insulated from presidential oversight,” thus violating the separation of powers.

But as the 2024 election looms, a Republican administration could significantly change that, making it more likely for corporations to be successful in attempts to strike down long-standing labor law.


The original article contains 335 words, the summary contains 140 words. Saved 58%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 06:54 next collapse

Those who make peaceful labor negotiations impossible, make violent strikes inevitable.

And with SpaceX, where rocket fuel and very expensive parts are abundant, this could be more entertaining and explosive than the average starship launch.

Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 24 Feb 2024 07:22 collapse

“It’d be a shame if these wires for the gyros got crossed in this rocket”

Massive explosion as rocket spins itself to pieces a few thousand feet up

SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 07:33 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/3f6cc360-ff5e-4fde-aac5-afbbed5ccf85.jpeg">

Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website on 24 Feb 2024 11:08 next collapse

With parts made by firms that are more than happy to fake study results for parts, falsely certifying them for whatever they feel like.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Feb 2024 00:42 collapse

So the Spectre of Stockton Rush is getting around.

GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee on 24 Feb 2024 07:48 next collapse

They’re banking on the 6-3 conservative majority being willing to use their power.

When organized labor is crushed, what comes next is never pretty (see: 1930s Germany).

Neon_Shadow@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 09:56 next collapse

Which is why I and many others will never have kids.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Feb 2024 00:40 collapse

1930s US is apt and also not pretty.

GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee on 27 Feb 2024 14:05 collapse

Yes, although the US pulled itself back enough with some of FDR’s reforms that it kicked the can down the road a few generations, whereas the Weimar Republic actually collapsed.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 27 Feb 2024 18:33 collapse

And here we are wondering if someone in office can do it again, or if the state is too far captured.

GivingEuropeASpook@lemm.ee on 28 Feb 2024 11:04 collapse

Captured implies that the State didn’t already function as a tool of capital

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 28 Feb 2024 21:44 collapse

The state and capital are both non-monolithic, as demonstrated by the rise of the US itself. We had a bunch of small-time plantation lords here in the states who didn’t want to remain under the thumb of the English parliament (in which there was no colonial representation). Even then we could grasp the notion of equality and liberty for all, but only for specific definitions of equality and liberty (slaves, women and poor people not invited).

Everyone thinks they can control the One Ring. Everyone hopes that civil war will resort in their own ideology being established. Everyone wants their clan to benefit from the new regime. Hamilton believed voters would be aware of their own needs from government and would vote accordingly. (They do neither.) Our constitutional framers believed two parties is enough to keep each other in check. (Two parties can easily be controlled by plutocrats who subsidize candidates in both).

This is why we’re in a quasi-stable not-quite feudal state. Once the Republican party can neuter elections (as per Project 2025 by the Heritage Foundation) they won’t have to meddle with Democrats, and we will see the state function as a tool of a narrower subset of capital. With autocracy, tyranny and genocide will follow.

bstix@feddit.dk on 24 Feb 2024 08:02 next collapse

The two richest people on earth whining about income distribution being unfair.

Neon_Shadow@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 09:55 collapse

This country is a joke.

Nudding@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 10:48 collapse

They all are

Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone on 24 Feb 2024 08:28 next collapse

Far out. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if some billionaire encouraged unionists and paid their staff well?!?!

NaibofTabr@infosec.pub on 24 Feb 2024 08:32 next collapse

But then they might have fewer billions.

Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone on 24 Feb 2024 08:33 collapse

Cry me a river

Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg on 24 Feb 2024 16:07 collapse

I don’t think it’s possible to become a billionaire and believe in fair labor practices.

I’m actually one of the minority on lemmy that believes in regulated capitalism. In that vein though, billionaires should be taxed out of existence. You can have tens or hundreds of millions, but once you get into the billions you really should be hitting a ceiling. You’re not contributing more than you’re taking from the country at that point and you’re a risk to democracy with that much concentrated power.

Tristaniopsis@aussie.zone on 24 Feb 2024 22:17 next collapse

I’m fine with regulated capitalism. I totally agree with you.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Feb 2024 00:50 collapse

Capitalism can’t stay well regulated according to Das Kapital and we’re seeing a lot of examples of regulatory capture and late-stage capitalism.

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 25 Feb 2024 00:47 next collapse

Nick Hanauer seems to talk the talk. He’s been on the lecture circuit for over a decade suggesting billionaires need to run their companies ethicaly or risk losing it all to class warfare. It’s a message that falls on deaf ears, and I don’t know if he practiced those ethics while building his initial fortune.

mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 02:03 next collapse

Minecraft’s Notch is a billionaire and regardless of his amusing racist antics, he treated his employees pretty well so I’ve heard.

I know, a rare exception.

ReveredOxygen@sh.itjust.works on 25 Feb 2024 02:45 collapse

Tens of hundreds of millions? Are you aware that ten hundred million is more commonly known as a billion

Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg on 25 Feb 2024 03:36 collapse

It was supposed to be or

andrewta@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 17:19 next collapse

So many people hate the baby boomers but it was the boomers, and the previous generation, that fought for so many rights that we have. And this generation is doing everything they can to destroy what was fought for. It’s fucking sad. Roe v Wade (gone). Not having minors do jobs they really shouldn’t be doing (going away). Not have minors working long hours (going away). NLRB ( i don’t trust that the Supreme Court will find in the favor of the people). IVF (under attack). Gerrymandering getting worse, with no real way to stop it.

By this generation (I mean the groups that came after the boomers). Did some boomers create some problems? Yes. But Damn did they get some things right.

UristMcHolland@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 17:42 collapse

Your timeline is off

andrewta@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 18:19 collapse

my point is still valid. the baby boomers (and their parents) fought for a lot of stuff and won and we are watching those things slip away. Roe v Wade was decided in 1973. which group of people fought for that? (and that’s just one example)

Miaou@jlai.lu on 24 Feb 2024 23:38 collapse

Your typical boomer was barely above age in 1973, things are not as clear cut as you say they are imo.

andrewta@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 23:50 collapse

Which is why I’ve been saying baby boomers AND their parents. Just like today the younger generation were putting pressure on the older generation

spoon00@midwest.social on 24 Feb 2024 17:29 next collapse

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|~|   I’m so very hungry 
cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 01:53 collapse

Is that Plankton?

woodenskewer@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 02:59 collapse

Took me a minute but it’s a guillotine. It’s kind of clever looking because the part someone lays on goes to a vanishing point making it pop out once you see it.

cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 04:18 collapse

It kinda does look like Plankton like giving a salute or something also tho

uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 24 Feb 2024 19:24 next collapse

As per Das Kapital the owning class will always seek to influence / capture the government to serve them and not the public. Hence capitalist society always moves towards autocracy and away from serving the public.

The problem is, getting it back is always long and bloody. Since the owning class can hire armies and enforcers to assert their will, they confront a moral hazard and resorting to violence is very easy for them. They turn to strikebusting because they have no principle other than that which increases their own personal gain.

We don’t know how to get there from here. We dont know how to do a communist revolution, since civil war tends to result in a string of autocracies. But the ownership class trembles at even the notion we are thinking about it.

Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works on 24 Feb 2024 20:02 collapse

“Someone should probably tell the rich that workers banding together to present formal address of grievances is the alternative we worked out a long time ago to breaking down the factory owner’s front door and beating him to death in front of his family? I feel like they forgot.”

~U: HoldenShearer - Twitter

uis@lemm.ee on 25 Feb 2024 01:07 next collapse

French remember

Sanctus@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 01:56 collapse

It would seem we ourselves forgot that, too.

K1nsey6@lemmy.world on 24 Feb 2024 23:08 next collapse

With the help of Starbucks, who’s former CEO was supposed to be Clinton’s Labor Secretary.

cheese_greater@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 01:51 collapse

God, Clinton really was a piece of shit, huh

K1nsey6@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 02:38 next collapse

Pro life VP, anti labor/anti union secretary of labor. Yes she was

hglman@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 02:46 collapse

While Reagan is the instrument that set America the path to hell, Bill Clinton was the right hand who crushed any idea of a rebound by labor. One can only assume both Clintons were critical in selling the DNC to capital.

uis@lemm.ee on 25 Feb 2024 01:05 next collapse

Wait till they will claim elections as unconstitutional

Bitflip@lemmy.ml on 25 Feb 2024 02:09 next collapse

I hear CEO pairs well with chianti

rottingleaf@lemmy.zip on 25 Feb 2024 04:32 collapse

And fava beans, though I’d prefer peas and an IPA.

GiddyGap@lemm.ee on 25 Feb 2024 02:58 next collapse

American workers could lose workplace protections that they’ve had for almost a century

It really can’t get much worse, though. Any American worker who thinks they have workplace protections needs to wake up and take a look around the rest of the Western world. The US is pretty much worst-in-class when in comes to workplace protections.

Maggoty@lemmy.world on 25 Feb 2024 03:04 collapse

Oh it can though.

GiddyGap@lemm.ee on 25 Feb 2024 04:45 collapse

Maybe a bit. But it’s still already worst-in-class.

treefrog@lemm.ee on 26 Feb 2024 17:57 collapse

Trader Joes too. Which is a bummer, I liked buying their veggie burgers.

Now I’m planning to stand outside their stores and picket instead. Let all those liberals know what they’re spending their money on, the destruction of the working class.