On picket lines

 

Definition of labor union: an organization of workers formed for the purpose of advancing its members' interests in respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions

Ok, so here's the deal: I have a favor to ask you. And it has to do with what Amazon, the behemoth that has made billions during the pandemic and pays virtually no taxes is doing to its employees: boycott it for a week. Just a week. Would you do that? No deliveries, no Amazon Prime. No buying and downloading Kindle books. No Twitch, no GoodReads. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. No Pesos for Bezos.

The workers at a Bassamer, Alabama, facility are voting to see whether they'll unionize. If they do, they'll be the first Amazon workers to unionize and that may probably be the most important election for the working class in America in the XXI century. Yeah, it's that important. I know what Unions can do for workers. I belong to a Union. They have saved my stupid ass once or three times. They negotiate my salary. I owe them. Big.

Oh, you don't believe me? Having a Union is so important that this happened:

Amazon, meanwhile, has seemingly done everything within its power to squelch the unionization effort. Beyond the predicted barrage of anti-union messaging, Amazon reportedly even went as far as lobbying local government to change traffic signals to stop pro-union workers from canvassing at red lights. 

"When it comes to this union busting, it's severe. We've never seen anything like it on this level," Joshua Brewer, an organizer with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, told The Guardian in an interview. 

MASHABLE

Amazon, the greedy bastards, are doing all they can short of face to face harassment to prevent this voting from being successful. All I'm asking here is just a little bit of patience. I know, you just NEED that pair of biking shorts. Or that yarn or wool. Or that gift for your nephew. Or that Pete Buttigieg autobiography. But I'm asking you to wait just one week. Seven days. To show support for fellow working class people. People who work under fucked up conditions and are literally exploited by Amazon. You know how the work situation is right now. Unemployment is sky high. People are working for miserable wages in terrible conditions.

As Amazon workers busted their assess working and as more than 20,000 amazon workers got COVID-19, Bezo's net worth rose $70 BILLION since the pandemic began. That money could pay for a $60,000 bonus for each and every one of the 1-million-plus Amazon employees worldwide. How's that for greed?

So if you feel you can do without Amazon for a week, would you? Think about it as armchair (or desk chair) activism. I don't have Amazon Prime and I don't buy a lot of stuff from Amazon. I have never given them my credit card number. I don't have Alexa in my house *shudders*. I was going to send a gift via Amazon but now I'm going to do Etsy. So, how about you? Sounds like a deal? For our fellow workers?

I don't know what else to tell you, besides the working conditions at Amazon not being the best. From work-related injuries to downright fucked up take-it-or-leave-it schedules to low wages and no medical insurance to all kinds of shenanigans. You may be (or could have been ) a worker at some point. How about one week without crossing this virtual picket line? After that, you can go back to your bingeing bad movies and ordering shit online. But meanwhile... maybe don't?

We don't want that old 'First they came for the Amazon workers and we didn't do anything...' thing to apply to us, do we?

XOXO

P.S. Wanna know more about unions? Check out Kirs LaGrange or Steven Greenhouse for a quick primer.