Skip to content

Amazon

Bessemer – A Big Step Forward

April 10, 2021 Frank Emspak, Portside. , , ,
Workers at the Amazon fulfillment center have voted in a National Labor Relations Board election to ascertain if a majority of those voting wish to be represented by a union. Votes are being counted. Should a majority of workers vote for the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Workers, Amazon should agree to recognize the union and bargain with them. I say “should” because Amazon may find ways to challenge the vote, appeal its result or force the union into court to get the law enforced. All people who value worker rights have their hopes on an election win for the union at Amazon. Likewise all those who seek to maintain the current system of employment at will, privileges instead of rights and discrimination in employment are also looking at Bessemer.

Amazon Employees Stage Walkout At Distribution Center

April 8, 2021 Nick Blumberg, WTTW. , , ,
Chicago - A group of Amazon employees walked out of the mega-retailer’s Gage Park distribution center Wednesday morning, calling on the company to stop understaffing the facility and to provide accommodations for people working a 10.5-hour overnight “megacycle” shift. “We’re tired of being used,” said Rakyle Johnson of Amazonians United Chicagoland on a livestream. “We work so hard, we give so much to our company … but they don’t give anything back.” An organizer told WTTW News that 20-30 workers walked out, leaving management frustrated and angry. The organizer said 5-10 people who weren’t scheduled to work Wednesday joined in support. They were also joined by Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th Ward) who said workers were being “exploited.”

Amazon General Strike In Italy

April 2, 2021 Peter Olney, Stansbury Forum. , , ,
It can be said with certainty that the strike was successful, especially among the drivers where participation was around 75%, with peaks of up to 90%. This probably delayed a substantial chunk of deliveries on March 22, but of course it is impossible to know how many customers were unable to receive packages from Amazon. There are around 19,000 Amazon drivers in all of Italy. For the 9000 direct employees in the warehouses (fulfillment centers) and the delivery stations   participation was around 70-75% on average nationally, with peaks in the northern sites, and a little lower in the south of Italy. Among the 9000 temporary agency warehouse workers, participation in the strike was 25-30%, but that level was considered a positive by the trade unions given the total blackmail of these workers...

One-Click Shopping Has Brought American Workers To The Brink

March 31, 2021 Andru Okun, In These Times. , , ,
A historic union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama officially came to a close on Monday. Now comes the tallying of votes. The election represents the first large-scale effort to organize an Amazon warehouse and a landmark moment for the labor movement in the U.S. South. If the majority of votes are in favor of unionization, the roughly 6,000 workers of the facility will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Predictably, Amazon — the country’s second-largest employer — has made considerable attempts to undercut the campaign, including heavily-funding anti-union propaganda, changing traffic light patterns to deter canvassing and even paying workers to quit.

Amazon Hires Off-Duty Cops To Harass Workers, The Press, And Supporters

March 29, 2021 Madeleine Freeman, Left Voice. , , ,
We came down from New York City to cover the historic struggle of Amazon workers to form a union and to amplify the stories of the nearly 6,000 workers who are putting their livelihoods on the line to fight for their right to collectively organize. If this union vote is successful, it will be the first union of Amazon workers in the United States. There is great potential in this union drive — an effort that is being waged by a primarily Black workforce in a virulently racist and anti-union state against one of the largest companies in the world. We arrived at the Bessemer facility to stand in solidarity with the workers and take footage of the facility. We moved away from the small group of supporters who come out each day with signs encouraging workers to “vote yes!” on the union, just a few steps down Amazon’s long driveway to film a report in front of the entrance sign.

The Amazon Union Vote Is Ending In Bessemer

March 29, 2021 Luis Feliz Leon, The New Republic. , , ,
The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is 885,000 square feet of shiny new construction. Signs painted on the windows in bursts of green, red, yellow greet workers at the main entrance with the words: Work Hard. Have Fun. Make History. Under these slogans, the silhouette of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s face adorns yellow placards reading, The Dream Is Alive. Workers on break outside lean their elbows on their knees or pace around the entrance, the sleeves of their pants rolled up to their kneecaps in the hot sun. It is a March day, the usual balmy 74 degrees. People are too tired to talk shit and wait in silence to return to their shifts, staring at shadows on the pavement or eyeing their phone screens. The facility, called BHM1, opened this time last year, just as the pandemic was bearing down on the United States.

Amazon Workers In Italy To Go On First Strike

March 12, 2021 Rory Sullivan, Independent. , , ,
Amazon’s workforce in Italy will go on its first collective strike later this month, trade unions have confirmed. All 8,500 employees in the country are expected to hold a 24-hour walkout on 22 March after negotiations between their representatives and the online retailer broke down. The three national unions supporting them accused Amazon of showing an “unwillingness to positively address” issues including working hours and results-based bonuses. They also claimed that the online giant was “chronically unavailable” for meetings and was opposed to “a system of fairness”. A spokesperson for the company called the allegations “false”, adding that Amazon had met unions twice in January. The trade unions’ announcement of industrial action comes two months after the US retailer said it would open two more logistics centres in Italy at the cost of 230 million euros (£197m).

Support Keeps Building For #BAmazon Union Drive

March 8, 2021 Martha Grevatt, Workers.org. , , ,
Some three dozen organizations loaned their names to a letter urging President Joe Biden to come out on the side of the Amazon workers fighting for a union. Biden had angered unionists and progressives for publicly taking a “neutral” stance on the representation election taking place now through March 29. Signers included UNITE HERE and Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) unions, Maine AFL-CIO, the National Employment Law Project and the Working Families Party. Feeling the pressure, on Feb. 28 Biden came out against Amazon’s union busting, affirming the right of every worker to choose union representation. Solidarity has been growing since the Feb. 20 National Day of Solidarity. Renowned actor and activist Danny Glover stood outside the Bessemer facility Feb. 22, holding a sign that read “Remember Mail Your Yes Ballot.”

Don’t Cross This Virtual Picket Line

March 7, 2021 Kris LaGrange, Ucomm Blog. , , ,
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama have been voting on joining RWDSU for the last month. If they are successful, they would be the first Amazon employees in the United States to join a union. Their campaign has garnered support from across the country. UCOMM previously reported on Teamsters driving from Boston to support the effort. The NFLPA has released a video supporting the organizing effort, actor Danny Glover came down to Bessemer to meet with the workers, and even President Joe Biden has weighed in. Josh Brewer, the lead organizer on the campaign, told the Prospect that many people in the community are extremely supportive of the organizing effort. “Everyone in the community is cheering us on. It’s been that way since we got here. We’ve had local people bring food and chocolate and coffee to the organizers. When I look at the notes that organizers send me, they tell me that workers are telling them, ‘It’s my grandfather I’m hearing from.

Amazon Workers On Why They Need To Unionize

March 4, 2021 Left Voice. , , ,
In the biggest unionizing struggle in Amazon’s history, nearly 6,000 workers at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama are voting on whether to join a union. The union drive has met fierce resistance from the company, desperate to stop it. Last month, the union talk radio show The Valley Labor report interviewed union organizing committee members Darryl Richardson, a picker at the fulfillment center, and Jennifer Bates, a Learning Ambassador, about working conditions at Amazon, the union drive, the response from bosses, and why they need a union. The union drive at Bessemer deserves support and solidarity from workers everywhere. If the workers win the union, it would be an inspiration for workers around the world, in addition to the 1.2 million workers currently being exploited by Amazon and Jeff Bezos.

Amazon Workers: ‘Everyone In The Community Is Cheering Us On’

March 3, 2021 Steven Greenhouse, The American Prospect. , , ,
As lead organizer in the potentially historic effort to unionize 5,800 Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, Josh Brewer heads a small army of organizers for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Brewer recognizes that it’s a high-stakes campaign—it’s the first time a union has sought to unionize all the workers at an Amazon warehouse in the United States. Bessemer, a suburb of Birmingham, was once a thriving union community, with steel mills, coal mines, and a Pullman railcar factory. Brewer, 33, is an ordained minister who gravitated from the pulpit to union organizing because he saw it as a more effective way to lift struggling Americans. The National Labor Relations Board mailed out the unionization ballots on February 8; they are due on March 29, and only then will the ballots be counted.

It’s Time To Make Large Corporations Pay Living Wages

February 28, 2021 Phil Mattera, DC Report. , , ,
Landing a job in the ’80s with a large corporation was, even for blue-collar workers, a ticket to good wages, generous benefits and a secure retirement. Women and workers of color did not share fully in this bounty, but they generally did better at big firms than small ones. All this began to unravel in the 1980s. Big business used the excuse of global competition to chip away at the living standards of the domestic workforce. Assault on unions, which were key in bringing about job improvements, proliferated. Meatpacking, for instance, what had been high wage and high-density union, turned into a bastion of precarious labor.

February 20: Day Of Action In Solidarity With Alabama Amazon Workers

February 17, 2021 Support Alabama Amazon Workers, Popular Resistance. , , ,
From Mississippi to Connecticut, North Carolina to California, workers, labor and community activists have resoundingly responded to the call for a National Day of Solidarity with Alabama Amazon Workers issued by the Southern Workers Assembly. More than 40 actions (and counting!) are now planned to mobilize solidarity with the workers in Bessemer and to tell Amazon:  Victory to the workers! Union-busting has got to go! The full list of actions can be found below. Amazon is spending tens of thousands of dollars each day on the most vile union busters around - Morgan Lewis - because they know this historic struggle being waged by the workers in Bessemer is inspiring Amazon and other workers to organize on their jobs, and they know that when workers build power, that means less profit for them.

Surveillance, Stress, And No Bathrooms

February 16, 2021 Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, Labor Notes. , , ,
The Amazonification of logistics has created a new group of highly exploited workers: delivery drivers. Amazon itself increasingly relies on an expanding network of subcontracted drivers and independent contractors to deliver packages to customers’ doors. The working conditions facing Amazon’s last-mile drivers are defined by a frantic pace, low wages, and relentless pressure to meet tight delivery deadlines. Workers of color and immigrants are overrepresented, as they are in all the lowest-paying segments of last-mile logistics. When an Amazon Prime member orders an item, the first step in the delivery process begins at an Amazon Fulfillment Center, where the item is picked by a worker and put into a box, and an address label is created.

Striking Workers Halt Construction At Future Amazon Warehouse

February 9, 2021 Lauren Kaori Gurley, Vice. , , , ,
Roughly 75 workers walked off the job on Thursday at the construction site of a future Amazon fulfillment center in southern California—forcing most of the construction operations, including a large crane, to come to a halt.  Workers are striking at the future Amazon fulfillment center in Oxnard, California, because an Amazon contractor at the site, Building Zone Industries, has hired non-union, out-of-state workers to work on the project. This comes amid high rates of unemployment stemming from the COVID-19 in the predominantly agricultural, working-class Latinx community. 
«12345678910»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 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.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

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.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.