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Activists Win Excessive Compensation Tax To Fund Social Housing

February 23, 2025 John Burbank, Inequality.org. , , , , , ,
Seattle voters have just beaten the oligarchs, Amazon, Microsoft, the local Chamber of Commerce, the real estate industry, the coup makers and backers, the Muskites, and the Trumpiphiles. How? Through a ballot measure, the people in Seattle have just approved a tax on excessive executive compensation to fund affordable housing. The vote wasn’t even close. The proposal, Proposition 1A, won by a 26-point margin. The advocacy group House Our Neighbors led the ballot campaign. Their leaders and leafletters and canvassers prevailed over a conservative and obstructing city council, a mayor focused on toadying to Seattle-based Amazon, a half-million-dollar opposition campaign, and the overlords of the Trump/Musk dictatorship.

Amazon Stokes Racial Divides In Lead-Up To Union Vote

February 12, 2025 Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Four thousand workers at a North Carolina Amazon warehouse are voting February 10-15 on whether to unionize with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment. RDU1, in the town of Garner, outside Raleigh, would be the second unionized Amazon warehouse in the United States. It’s an ambitious campaign. The workers are organizing across racial and ethnic divides, through constant turnover, in deeply hostile terrain. At 2.4 percent, North Carolina’s union density is the lowest in the country. They’ll also need to overcome widespread fear of something Amazon is notorious for: retaliation.

The Stone Is In Our Hands, Now We Take The Shot

February 11, 2025 Rev. Ryan Brown, Facing South. , , ,
The Philistine warrior Goliath stood over nine feet tall, clad in bronze armor, armed with a spear, sword, and javelin. For forty days, he mocked the Israelites, daring anyone to challenge him. No one would — until a shepherd boy named David stepped forward. He had no armor, no sword, only a sling and five smooth stones. The world saw a young boy facing certain defeat. But David had something Goliath did not: faith, conviction, and the knowledge that justice was on his side. David let his stone fly, and the giant fell. Amazon is our Goliath. It is one of the largest corporations in human history, worth over two trillion dollars.

Amazon Lays Off 4,500 Workers In Quebec To Bust Their Union

February 8, 2025 François L’Écuyer, Labor Notes. , , , , ,
Faced with the prospect of being forced to sign a labor contract as early as this summer, Amazon has gone to extreme lengths to evade its obligations under Quebec’s labor code. On January 22, it announced it is closing all seven of its warehouses in Quebec and outsourcing their operations. Is Amazon closing shop? Not really. It will continue selling its wares online in Quebec; It’s just that warehousing and delivery will now be handled by third-party contractors. But the 4,700 layoffs are very real: 1,900 Amazon employees across the seven warehouses are losing their jobs, including the 230 workers at DXT4, which became the first Amazon facility in Canada to unionize in May 2024.

How The Teamsters Tested Amazon

February 7, 2025 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. , , , , , ,
New York City — At 6 a.m., a few days before Christmas, in the postindustrial neighborhood of Maspeth, 47 workers kick off a nationwide Teamsters strike against Amazon. Maspeth, a corner of Queens that two centuries ago boasted lumberyards, linoleum manufacturers and rope factories, is still a bastion of union pride. ​“The people are working-class and they respect the unions and belong to them, especially the uniform ones, like the firemen, cops and sanitation workers,” said a retired construction worker at a local pub in 2020’s The Queens Nobody Knows. But today, the uniforms increasingly seen around Maspeth sport Amazon’s signature ​“smiley swoosh” icon.

UPS Cuts Back On Amazon Deliveries, Announces Building Closures

February 7, 2025 Eliza Schultz and Bill Aiman, Fight Back! News. , , , ,
Chicago, IL – On Thursday January 30, UPS announced a major cutback in Amazon package deliveries, with the goal of dropping over 50% of the volume from the company’s largest customer by June 2026. In conjunction, UPS is looking to permanently shutter 10% of buildings, shrink their fleet of vehicles and lay off workers. The plan to close more buildings comes on the heels of the hard fought 2023 Teamsters contract, which resulted in major wage gains for part-timers and the end of the 2-tier system among package car drivers. The credible threat of a strike forced UPS to concede to the union’s demands in contract negotiations and look elsewhere for cost savings.

How Philly Whole Foods Workers Beat Bezos

February 4, 2025 Eric Blanc, Labor Politics. , , , , , ,
Can labor sustain its forward momentum under Trump? The first big test came last Monday, when Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia voted on whether to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Many in the labor movement were expecting a loss, since MAGA is now in office and since management — headed by Trump’s new billionaire buddy Jeff Bezos — went scorched earth against the nascent union effort. But a multiracial crew of young, self-organized, left-leaning workers proved the skeptics wrong, as so often has been the case since 2021.

Closures In Quebec Show Amazon Is Scared Of Workers Organizing

January 30, 2025 Pola Posen, Left Voice. , , , , , , , ,
The workers at a Whole Foods location in Center City, Philadelphia, voted to form the grocery chain’s first-ever union on Monday, marking an incredible victory for workers who have been organizing at the store for over a year. Whole Foods was bought by Amazon in 2017, and since then benefits, staffing levels, and working conditions have gotten worse. 130 workers voted in favor of unionizing with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), while 100 voted against. Through the union, workers are demanding a living wage (the starting salary is currently only $16/hour), better benefits, and more protections.

World’s Richest Billionaires At Center Of Trump’s Inauguration

January 21, 2025 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Donald Trump has returned for his second term as US president. He invited some of the world’s most powerful billionaire oligarchs to his inauguration in Washington. Sitting next to Trump’s cabinet nominees, at the center of his inauguration, were the three richest people on Earth: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla; Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon; and Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Together, these three men have nearly $900 billion in wealth. They could be seen on video chatting alongside Sundar Pichai, who is the billionaire CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet.

Amazon Extracts Profit From The Suffering Of Its Workers

January 9, 2025 People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
The week before Christmas, Amazon workers at facilities across the US, organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, took on the world’s most profitable third party logistics corporation by walking off the job by the hundreds. Although this pre-holiday strike represented a minority of the Amazon workforce, it represented the largest strike against Amazon in US history. Amazon’s profits keep breaking records, even within the context of a logistics industry that as a whole is experiencing a difficult freight market due to an oversupply of truck capacity.

Amazon Strike By The Numbers

January 7, 2025 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , ,
An estimated 600 Amazon workers went on a short strike or participated in pickets from December 19 to Christmas Eve across eight warehouse locations, from Queens to San Francisco. The coordinated mobilization was an opening salvo to Amazon, and a test of capacity for the Teamsters’ growing national network. The union says it represents between 7,000 and 10,000 Amazon workers, either by authorization election or majority demand for recognition: a fulfillment center on Staten Island, an air hub in Southern California, a delivery station warehouse in San Francisco, and a handful of delivery contractors.

Supercomputer Talks Between Israel, Amazon, And Google Collapse

January 4, 2025 Palestine Chronicle, Orinoco Tribune. , , , , , , , , , ,
In a significant shift, talks between the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA) and tech giants Amazon and Google regarding the development of a government supercomputer have collapsed. Following the breakdown in negotiations, the Israeli government has opened up the project to other bidders, signaling a shift toward an alternative technological partnership. As reported by Globes, the tender for the supercomputer project is valued at NIS 290 million (approximately $79.4 million), with the winning bidder set to receive a government grant of NIS 160 million ($44 million).

From Pickets To Power: Lessons From The Amazon Walk-Outs

December 30, 2024 Luigi Morris, Left Voice. , , ,
On December 18, incoming President Donald Trump hosted Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. After years of tension, Bezos was eager to build a closer relationship with Trump. He had just donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, praised him for his “energy around reducing regulation,” and also kept the Washington Post from endorsing a presidential candidate, which showed his willingness to deal with Trump on good terms. But as they enjoyed their luxurious dinner, Amazon workers were finalizing plans for the largest worker action across the country in the company’s history, set to begin the following day.

Amazon Strike Takeaways: Walk-Outs Slowed Packages, Boosted Union Power

December 25, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. , , ,
Amazon workers picketed their employer over the weekend through blisteringly frigid weather and, in New York, a flooded sidewalk as part of an escalating series of strikes by a minority of workers across the logistics behemoth’s supply chain. These strikes, waged from coast to coast at nine warehouses across Amazon’s supply chain, are part of a nationwide movement to consolidate organizing at the logistics giant in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). In 2022, the Teamsters launched a division to support organizing at Amazon. The union now represents 5,500 workers at the hulking JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island

Amazon Unleashed Flood Of Water On Striking Workers

December 24, 2024 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. , , , ,
Queens, New York — On the cold afternoon of Saturday, December 21, Amazon Teamsters and allies were walking in a circle in front of the entrance to the delivery station DB4K, holding pre-printed signs demanding ​“Amazon Obey the Law,” when striking workers were flooded by a torrential outpouring of water from the building. ​“This was just like a fire hydrant on full blast,” said Amazon driver Danny Batista. Christian Santana, another driver on the scene, said he had seen water trickle out of the fire suppression system but never a torrent like this.
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Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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