I don’t think some of them would want to put the way they treat their workers in writing
Workers have only one right (until recently), the right to withdraw labour, contracts of employment (for the common man) aren’t worth the paper they are written on.
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If the employers didn’t do what was in the handbook the employee has all the information he needs to take legal action against the company. It’s the same the other way around.
It’s not that easy to take legal action in the US if you are not wealthy. In particular they seem to have a right to fire people without much pretext.
There is always no-win-no-fee lawyers.
Unions are all about serving the union leaders in my view. I don’t know anyone who has asked for support from a union to actually get it. I also know people who have had to do 6 months overtime to make up their loss in wages due to strike action where they didn’t get paid for a few months, all for a 10p in the £ pay rise. I also know a union leader who made a fortune out of being a union leader.
One thing I do know about the USA is how much credit people get and how much debt they build because they need to have the latest of this and the latest of that. I know that happens here too, but in the USA its on an enormous scale.
But why we would implement USA working regulations in the UK is beyond me.
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For sure Amazon isn’t the only one, but they’re one of the biggest. They also pay zero taxes but leave their workers so destitute that they have to get government services for food even with a job.
because of this. Amazon got unions defeated in Alabama, the place where this happened.
Forming a union is not that easy in the US. Some unions requires dues, take the employees’ money and then work on the side of companies who pay them off.
It’s also difficult to get the laws changed on this because corporations pay off politicians legally. Politicians will vote against their constituents’ interests in favor of the large corporations. People voting out these incumbents is also very difficult for a vast array of reasons.
In the US, many places have ‘at will employment’. That allows the employer to terminate anyone at any time for any reason or no reason.
I’ve never bought anything from Amazon. I’m not boycotting them or anything like that. If I boycotted every company that had bad practices, I wouldn’t survive, but stuff like this sticks in the back of my mind when I think about ordering there. They did just increase their minimum wage to $15/hr, so I’m closer to ordering there than I was before. And Bezos did just step down, so maybe that’s a plus. Here’s hoping.
Edit: This is another reason I support universal basic income. People shouldn’t be allowed to die because they can’t afford not to. If there was a basic floor of income, people would have more leverage to fight these practices.
Amazon pay the taxes they are required to pay, if they didn’t they would all be in jail.
we have government in work benefits here too - universal credit is one. Its not uncommon for the state to help low paid people.
Universal basic income has failed everywhere its been tried. Its because it doesn’t work.
Exactly, legal action in the US is for the rich. (Also going that way here 
)
They’d get fired in the mean time and would probably have trouble getting another job
(known trouble maker)
It happens too. There may be terms of employment attached to a job, but employers break them because they can and employees have to be very determined if they want to stand up for themselves.
For example, some employers whose employees were on furlough and getting paid by the government forced them to come in and work some shifts and threatened that they wouldn’t have a job to come back to if they didn’t.
This was fraud, of course.
The employer was getting money from the government to pay their employees because they couldn’t work.
If they were coming into work, then the employer should have paid them for the work they did and returned the furlough money.
By making them work, the employer was stealing government money to pay the employees and getting their labour free.
But most employees were too scared to report them for fear of not having a job when Covid was over.
There are going to be a lot of fraud investigations when this is over.
Yes, for sure. No one I know is claiming that they’re taking tax breaks illegally. That’s why they have an army of lawyers and accountants on staff to make sure they can pay zero or almost zero taxes.
It’s not really about Amazon by itself. Amazon is the poster company for the practice. The problem lies with the lawmakers who create tax loopholes for companies like Amazon because the politicians are paid by them.
The end result is that employees get treated badly or die because companies have an incentive to maximize their profit at the expense of people’s lives.
Things may be changing slowly, ironically because of covid,. Unemployment benefits because of covid and stimulus payments have given some people a paradigm shift over what they’re willing to accept and the options they have.
I’ve been thinking of starting a thread on UBI. I’ve been studying UBI for a couple years now. Maybe later.
In the US I believe you have to rely on “pro-bono” arrangements which is basically charity. For something like a day’s leave dispute or being fired I seriously doubt anyone would take it on. For no win no fee in the UK they weigh up the damages and their share or their fees and if it’s not at least 50% chance of a win they say no. But in the US if you have money (such as a big corporation) you are going to win because you can afford the best professionals.
Reading this lot makes the States sounds a sleazy corrupt place.
Universal income will be implemented once the bots take over in a few years…There is currently a massive bot revolution going on under everyone’s noses. Blockchain is part of that. Nobody bothers much with it because it’s so complex.
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Exactly this. Nailed it. Unfortunately, people can’t see ahead to this happening, so it will have to happen first, like covid happened when lots of people were screaming to prepare for it.
To be honest I am not a fan, but who knows perhaps it’s the only way to save the planet. That and nuclear reactors unless someone works out how to make fusion work…
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If I was in the UK, I probably wouldn’t be a fan either. The UK has enough safety nets and guard rails that this problem isn’t as imminent.
That’s not the case in the US, which is why the OP’s article is from the US where this kind of thing happens more often.
It’s also the reason I’m hesitant to start a thread on UBI here. The situations in the US and the UK are not identical on this topic.
Good luck with that one.
At my last employer the enterprise award agreement gave us unlimited sick leave on full pay. I was off for 6 months on full pay with my back operation. These things can be negotiated.
That was a good employer Bruce, Darwin would have had you written off, after an episode like that!