Support Alabama Amazon Workers: International Day of Action

Event by Seattle Democratic Socialists of America, Freedom Socialist Party – Seattle/Puget Sound Branch and 5 others

Day of Solidarity Against Amazon’s Challenges to Unionization

Sat. March 20^th 2021 is a day of solidarity to protest Amazon’s challenges to unionization.

Events are here: https://supportamazonworkers.org/march20/

The Seattle event is at 2 pm by the Spheres, 2129 7^th Ave., Seattle.  FB event

People in Bessemer, AL Want a Union

This is in solidarity with the 5,800 people in Bessemer, Alabama who are voting on whether to join a union.  The ballots will to be counted by March 30^th.  If they manage it, it will be the first unionized Amazon workforce in the US, unionizing with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). With a membership of up to 18,000 members in Alabama, the RWDSU represents more than 100,000 across the U.S.  More: AL.com  BAmazonUnion.org.

Conditions in Amazon Warehouses

The Income and Wealth Inequality Crisis in America Hearing in the Senate Budget Committee

Jennifer Bates has worked at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama since May 2020.

Here’s her speaking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UfsYEjoeVc&ab_channel=CNETHighlights

– as a PDF: https://www.budget.senate.gov/download/jennifer-bates-testimony.  A summary:

They get 2 30 minute breaks, not enough to rest, in their 10 hour days

They have to walk across floors the size of a few football fields.  People walk for miles every day.

Just going to the bathroom takes a long time because it is far away, it takes up their break time.

There are 4 floors, and people are limping.

Managers just text employees or message them through an app.  It is impersonal, and people worry about being fired for any reason.  People are treated like machines.

People have no access to the many elevators – they are just for products.

The pace is super fast, and after only 3 days of working there, she was hurting.

People are constantly monitored.

If your scanner isn’t scanning, you get ‘time off task’ – and if you have too many of them, they discipline you or fire you.  The same applies if you are not fast enough.

They have random security checks to see if you are stealing when you go for a break, and the time for the security check is taken out of your break.

Pregnant and Sick Workers are not Taken Seriously

https://www.boredpanda.com/amazon-employees-bad-working-conditions/

Amazon Pushing Back Against Unionizing

Here is a video clip of Jennifer Bates talking about Amazon’s push back against unionizing: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/amazon-union-jennifer-bates-bernie-sanders-b1818586.html

There are notices everywhere dissing unionization, even in the bathrooms.

There are mandatory Union Education meetings sometimes a few times a week dissing unions, for as much as an hour.  If someone disagrees, they shut the meeting down.  In the meetings, they told them they would lose their benefits if they had a union.  Then afterwards they follow up with them one on one.   They have sent messages to people’s phones about unionizing.

Amazon fired 2 tech workers who spoke out: WaPo