#Striketober could also be over, however the struggles to prepare at Amazon haven’t been not defeated — in truth, they’re spreading. Three Amazon places are at present trying to unionize: two in Staten Island, and one in Bessemer, Alabama.
Ballots went out yesterday to over 6,100 staff at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse for a mail-in election with a March 25 deadline. Chances are you’ll keep in mind the Bessemer unionization effort from March of 2021. Final yr, that effort failed in no small half because of Amazon’s union-busting techniques together with anti-union text messages and bribes. Whereas forcing their staff to attend obligatory anti-union lectures, they pressured the town into altering the timing of a site visitors mild to be able to disrupt organizing efforts, and even strong-armed the USPS into putting in a mailbox that the Nationwide Labor Relations Board (NLRB) had explicitly barred, in an Amazon-branded ballot-collecting tent. In consequence, the NLRB determined that Amazon used union-busting techniques, and ordered a brand new union vote.
In Staten Island, New York, two Amazon warehouses at the moment are looking for to unionize. JFK8 staff attempted to unionize last year however withdrew their petition in November, solely to refile in December. Because the NLRB was compelled to confess, the employees have sufficient signatures for a listening to to be held in mid-February. This assembly will determine what number of staff are eligible to vote, in addition to the timing of the vote.
Inside the previous week, staff on the Staten Island warehouse LDJ5 submitted petitions to the NLRB to request a union vote. These two New York Metropolis warehouses usually are not unionizing via an present union, however submitting below a brand new one, known as Amazon Labor Union. Among the many leaders of the hassle is Chris Smalls, who was fired for protesting Amazon’s lack of security measures on the peak of the pandemic.
Amazon is the nation’s second-largest non-public employer after Walmart, and is infamous for its horrendous working circumstances. Within the phrases of Francis Wallace, a employee interviewed by Left Voice in Bessemer final yr: “This can be very tiring, I’ll agree with that. After all, there’s bending and standing up on a regular basis. There’s a ladder inside my space, ’trigger I do stowing. I’m climbing up and down the ladder, bending up and down, selecting up the packing containers. If you do this for 10 hours straight and also you solely have three, perhaps 15 minute breaks, it will get actually tiring.” One other employee reported extremely hot warehouses, with out air flow.
A number of staff have died on the job at Amazon warehouses over the previous yr. Six died during a tornado that struck the midwest in December, and two died on the Bessemer location. One employee suffered a stroke after being instructed by administration that he couldn’t go away work. Hours later, one other employee died. “There isn’t a shutdown. There isn’t a second of silence. There isn’t a time to take a seat and have a prayer,” Perry Connelly defined. “A few people who labored immediately with him have been badly shaken up and wished to go house and weren’t allowed to go house.”
These three unionization efforts come on the heels of the essential strikes in October and November, popularly generally known as #Striketober, with stoppages at giant employers like Kellogg, John Deere, Columbia University, and a whole bunch of smaller workplaces. Just a few miles from Bessemer, Alabama miners at Warrior Met Coal have been on strike for almost ten months. Just lately, dozens of Starbucks stores have additionally filed for union elections. This all comes amidst the so-called “Great Resignation,” with staff quitting their jobs in droves. The pandemic has shifted the highlight to the working class.
At Amazon, the discontent among the many working class can be expressing itself in additional direct methods, via mobilization and motion. In December, staff at Amazon warehouses in Chicago walked off the job, demanding a wage improve and higher working circumstances, organized by Amazonians United, a labor community that organizes at Amazon all through the nation.
Successful at Amazon could unleash a wave of unionization filings, simply as the primary profitable Starbucks union in Buffalo has impressed comparable drives at dozens of other locations.
As anticipated, Amazon is once more partaking in union busting, revealing simply how frightened they’re of the rising consciousness of their staff’ collective energy. Anti-union signs, in addition to paid union busters, have been noticed on the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. Managers have held mandatory anti-union meetings. Amazon has introduced in union buster David Acosta — a self-described “Union Avoidance Consultant,” who earned over $400,000 in 2017 — who has reportedly illegally threatened workers in opposition to voting to unionize. Worker Daequan Smith was illegally fired for attempting to unionize. That is nothing new for Amazon, as previous unionization attempts present.
Amazon is hell bent on ensuring no union emerges at their workplaces and they’re effectively conscious of the domino impact that one union could create. That’s the reason they may throw the whole lot they’ve at defeating these efforts.
As the primary Bessemer Amazon unionization drive confirmed, to win a union, it isn’t sufficient to depend on Democratic Social gathering politicians and celeb endorsements. A lot criticism has been leveled on the RWDSU for his or her lack of employee participation, from our own pages in addition to from authors like Jane Mcalevey. The Staten Island warehouses should additionally study from this.
There isn’t a substitute for the rank and file. If these unions have any likelihood of profitable, they have to be organized by and for staff. And these unions shouldn’t solely be for the aim of profitable a union, however to create a combating power for the working class. And because the Nice Resignation highlights, it’s not sufficient to be unionized; in any case academics and healthcare staff who’re struggling below horrendous work circumstances are leaving in droves. Staff should reject prime down enterprise unionism and set up combating unions, organized by and for the rank and file — a union just isn’t an finish in itself, however a step in constructing a combating working class.
