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How Some Amazon Shareholders Allied With The Labour Movement

May 29, 2023 Gabriela Calugay-Casuga, Rabble.ca. , , , ,
During Amazon’s annual general meeting on May 24, a proposal for an independent audit on working conditions in Amazon warehouses did not pass. This was unsurprising after Amazon’s Board of Directors advised their shareholders to vote against the proposal ahead of the meeting. The Board of Directors recommended against passing the proposal because they claim that the company regularly enhances safety processes and programs, they have shared workforce incident rates, they are transparent about their commitment to improve workplace safety and because there are already “independent directors” who review workplace incidents.

Organizing Despite The Churn

May 23, 2023 Jenny Brown, Labor Notes. , , ,
When the Amazon Labor Union first submitted union authorization cards, “we had to withdraw and file again,” recalled organizing committee member Justine Medina, “because Amazon challenged over 1,000 of our signatures saying they no longer worked there.” The sky-high turnover at the 8,000-worker fulfillment center on New York's Staten Island, made collecting cards “a race against Amazon firing everyone,” she said. Amazon has annual turnover of 150 percent. “They design the productivity quota, the rates system, to be a constant speedup situation, and that makes it hard to keep the job,” said Medina, who still works at the warehouse. Several ALU leaders have been fired.

Can Labor Seize Its ‘Movement Moment’?

April 14, 2023 Rand Wilson and Peter Olney, Stansbury Forum. , , ,
One measure of the labor movement’s relative power is the percentage of the workforce covered by union contracts. From a post-war high in 1955 of 35% in the private sector represented by unions, the percentage has steadily plunged—now to a low of only 6% . That low private sector number is buoyed to just over 10% by the higher percentage of unionized public sector workers. These dismal membership numbers hide the promise this moment holds for union organizing. Public support, resources, and organizing momentum point to some of the brightest possibilities for the US union movement in decades.

The Undercover Organizers Behind America’s Union Wins

April 5, 2023 Josh Eidelson, Portside. , , , ,
If you want to unionize a workplace, Will Westlake was saying, get used to unclogging the drains. At a secret off-hours gathering held in Rochester, New York, in March, the 25-year-old former barista told a few dozen labor activists that a great way to build trust with co-workers and bosses is to volunteer for thankless chores. In his case, that meant spending months at a Starbucks outside Buffalo in 2021 getting on his knees and reaching beneath the sinks to yank loose the grimy mix of mocha chips, espresso beans, congealed milk and rotten fruit that regularly stopped things up. “Be the person who’s willing,” Westlake said. “It’s going to make the company less suspicious of you.”

Filings Reveal Amazon Spent Over $14 Million To Bust Union In 2022 Alone

April 4, 2023 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. , , ,
As Amazon Labor Union’s groundbreaking labor movement gained momentum — and, in some ways, faltered — in 2022, Amazon was busy shelling out millions of dollars to anti-union consultants in order to ensure that the union movement would fail, new filings show. As first reported by HuffPost, new financial disclosures filed on Friday with the Department of Labor show that Amazon spent $14.2 million on anti-union consultants. These consultants are hired by companies seeking to bust union efforts, advising them on ways to skirt or violate federal laws in order to crush labor organizing.

Amazon Workers Take Effort To Unionize Largest Air Hub National

March 19, 2023 Quinlan Bentley and Jolene Almendarez, Cincinnati Enquirer. , , ,
The effort to unionize workers at the largest Amazon Air Hub in the world is going national. Local organizers with Unionize Amazon Northern Kentucky KCVG announced Saturday that they're joining forces with the national Amazon Labor Union, which unionized a Staten Island facility last year. They're also beginning to collect union authorization cards, which include signatures from employees confirming they want to take the issue to a vote. At least three dozen volunteers and members of the public rallied outside of the air hub Saturday afternoon, chanting and waiving signs with the workers' demands: a $30-an-hour starting wage, 180 hours of paid time off annually with no cap on accrued time and union representation against discipline.

Unintimidated, Amazon Workers Unionize Their Workplaces

March 17, 2023 Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News. , , ,
The historic union election victory at the JFK8 Amazon warehouse on Staten Island sent shockwaves throughout the US and beyond, but New York is not the only place Amazon workers are organizing. In Moreno Valley, California, workers at the ONT8 warehouse have been doing the painstaking work of organizing for years, and now they are attempting to unionize with the independent Amazon Labor Union, facing the same union-busting playbook from Amazon management that workers in Staten Island, Bessemer, Chicago, etc. have faced.

How My Co-Workers Got Me Reinstated At Amazon’s San Bernardino Air Hub

February 7, 2023 Sara Fee, Labor Notes. , , , ,
San Bernardino, California - I’ve never organized before. What we’re doing at Amazon is all new to me. When I first started working at KSBD, the Amazon air hub in San Bernardino, it was the middle of the pandemic and they were hiring in mad numbers. No one else was. I needed a job fast and it seemed like the kind of place where I could move up. KSBD is brand new. It opened in April 2021, and I was among the first hired; depending on the season, there are about 1,200-1,600 workers there. It’s located at an airport, so a few hundred people work outside with the planes and the rest of us are inside. I work on the docks, unloading trailers. It operates 24/7. When I started at the warehouse, I was organizing—I just didn’t recognize it. But I was focused on the work process and making the warehouse run more smoothly. It seemed like Amazon had opened KSBD without a lot of planning; like we were testing the operation as we went. I was really hands-on.

Amazon Labor Union Wins Again At National Labor Relations Board

January 20, 2023 Martha Grevatt, Workers.org. , , ,
“The ALU is officially a certified UNION! This is a HUGE moment for the labor movement! Solidarity everyone! Let’s continue to fight for what we deserve!” This jubilant statement was tweeted out Jan. 11 by the Amazon Labor Union after the National Labor Relations Board officially named it the sole bargaining representative for workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse. The NLRB issued its ruling over nine months after the ALU won a representation election by a wide margin at the Staten Island, New York, facility. Rejecting all 25 of Amazon’s objections to the election results, the Board gave Amazon until Jan. 25 to file a “request for review.” Once the ALU won the election April 1, 2022, Amazon could have immediately begun negotiations with the union for a first contract. Instead the union-busting behemoth chose to delay its obligations by filing spurious charges, alleging election misconduct against the ALU and the NLRB.

New York Targets Amazon With Warehouse Worker Protections Impact

December 24, 2022 Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post. , , ,
New York - New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed a bill into law Wednesday that aims to crack down on stringent warehouse work quotas at companies like Amazon. The law, known as the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, requires distribution centers to disclose work speed data to their employees so they better understand their productivity rate and the company’s expectations. It also bars companies from firing workers because they failed to meet quotas that weren’t transparent or didn’t allow enough time for rest and bathroom breaks. The law applies to any company with a large distribution center in the state, but the most obvious target is Amazon. The Seattle-based online retail giant is the largest employer of warehouse employees in the country.

Global Actions On Black Friday Unite Workers To ‘Make Amazon Pay’

December 15, 2022 Peter Olney and Rand Wilson, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Over the last 27 years Amazon has grown from a little-known online bookseller to a global sprawling logistics and delivery empire, overtaking brick-and-mortar retailers with its e-commerce offerings and threatening to make serious inroads on last-mile carriers like FedEx, UPS, and the Postal Service. Recently Amazon even established a virtual health services company: Amazon Clinic. As the company’s tentacles reach around the world, organizing its massive 1.5 million workforce necessitates new levels of international union cooperation and solidarity. UNI Global Union, a federation representing logistics and service workers headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, stepped up for the third year in a row to coordinate worldwide actions on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Black Friday.

Amazon Workers Protest Appearance By Amazon CEO At NYT DealBook Summit

November 30, 2022 Amazon Labor Union, Popular Resistance. , , ,
New York – Members of the Amazon Labor Union, joined by local labor and community supporters, will protest outside the New York Times’ DealBook Summit, beginning at 10 a.m., November 30. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is one of the event’s scheduled speakers. “If Jassy comes to New York he should come to bargain a contract with Amazon workers, not bluster or practice union-busting,”  said Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls. “It’s time that Amazon and the company’s CEO respect the rights of workers and join ALU in improving working conditions, rather than acting as an uncaring, B.S.-spouting, corporate law-breaker.” During Jassy’s tenure as Amazon’s CEO which began this year, the e-commerce giant has used highly-paid union busters to suppress the rights of its workers, harass organizers and delay bargaining as required by law. 

Amazon Workers Strike In The US And 30 Other Countries On Black Friday

November 26, 2022 Hayley Cuccinello, Business Insider. , , ,
Today, Amazon workers and activists are protesting to secure better working conditions across the globe. The campaign is led by Make Amazon Pay, a coalition of 70 trade unions and organizations including Greenpeace, Oxfam, and Amazon Workers International. "The pandemic has exposed how Amazon places profits ahead of workers, society, and our planet," Make Amazon Pay wrote in a list of demands shared on its website. "Amazon takes too much and gives back too little. It is time to Make Amazon Pay." Protests were planned in more than 30 countries, including India, Germany, and Japan, according to Make Amazon Pay. In the US, protests are expected in more than 10 cities from coast to coast at Amazon's main headquarters in Seattle, Jeff Bezos' penthouse in New York City, Whole Foods stores, and Amazon warehouses.

On Black Friday, Workers Of The World Unite…Against Amazon

November 23, 2022 Mark Gruenberg, People's World. , , ,
For at least the third year in a row, workers worldwide will mark “Black Friday,” this year on Nov. 25, with mass protests, this time against one of the most exploitative companies on the planet, Amazon. Entitled the “Make Amazon Pay Day of Action,” demonstrations are scheduled in at least 32 countries by at least 80 unions against the monstrous corporate giant and its mistreatment of its workers. “Amazon is squeezing every last drop it can from workers, communities, and the planet,” declares Our Revolution, the activist group of Bernie Sanders backers that is one of several dozen organizations, including international union coalitions, seeking participants in the protests. “We are workers and citizens divided by geography and our role in the global economy, but we’re united to Make Amazon Pay fair wages, its taxes, and for its impact on the planet.” They have good cause.

Peak Season For Action At Amazon

October 21, 2022 Rand Wilson and Peter Olney, Labor Notes. , , ,
Could this November see the biggest coordinated international day of action at Amazon yet? Although Thanksgiving is a unique U.S. holiday, the day after—known as “Black Friday”—is celebrated in many countries as the opening of the Christmas shopping season. In Italy, for example, merchants offer Black Friday discounts that fill their stores with the same bargain-hungry shoppers as in the U.S. That’s why three Italian trade union federations chose it as a strategic day in 2017 to strike Amazon’s million-square-foot distribution center in Castel San Giovanni, near Piacenza in Northern Italy. The San Giovanni facility opened in 2015. Two years later, half of the 1,650 permanent “Blue Badge” employees struck on Black Friday. While there had been some previous job actions at Amazon in Germany, this was one of the first Amazon strikes in Europe, or, in fact, anywhere.
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