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Minnesota: Somali Amazon Warehouse Workers Stop Work Demand Respect for Immigrant Workers!

Amazon workers in Shakopee, Minnesota, stop work on March 8. Sign reads: “We are humans, not robots.”

30 Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, carried out a three-hour work stoppage on March 8 during the night shift. Most are Somali immigrants who face especially high levels of mistreatment because of their religious and immigrant status.

In December, 100 Somali-American workers and supporters marched on the Shakopee fulfillment center. Employee Khadra Hassan, said, “The head of Amazon [Jeff Bezos] doesn’t know who his workers are or what they’re faced with. We are not getting what we need from Amazon.” Hassan nearly lost miscarried her baby when she passed out while lifting heavy boxes in the extreme heat. She says that she was denied services when she reported to Amazon’s health office, because her benefits had not kicked in yet.

During the work stoppage on March 8, a photo uploaded to Facebook went viral. It showed the workers holding up a sign reading, “We are humans, not robots.” The post also listed their complaints against Amazon, including racist promotion practices, outrageous work intensity, lack of language translation services, lack of health benefits, the need for more bathroom visits, and prayer breaks.

Amazon fulfillment center workers in Poland uploaded a video to the internet expressing solidarity, showing the international scope of the workers’ struggle. Last year on “Black Friday”, an estimated 2,400 Amazon workers went on strike across Europe, in Spain, Italy, Germany, and France.

As workers become increasingly linked up through global markets and digital communications systems, the possibilities of international worker coordination become more and more feasible.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is the richest person in the world, worth an estimated $138 billion. The company’s profits nearly doubled between 2017 and 2018, yet Amazon paid no federal income taxes. All that wealth should go to the working people who actually produce it, and to the betterment of society.. There is no reason that one man should hoard $138 billion dollars, or even a million dollars.

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13,000 NY Nurses Winning Patient Safety

13,000 nurses employed by the Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and New York Presbyterian hospital systems and represented by the New York State Nurses Association, have been working hard to raise awareness about conditions they and their patients face by understaffing. There are not enough nurses to care for the volume of patients, and the nurses themselves are dangerously overworked during long shifts.

The Nurses Association has been pushing for the passage of the Safe Staffing for Quality Act, which would set staffing requirements in direct care facilities and nursing homes. Hospital administrators and lobbyists–more concerned about profit than care–have fought against the passage of the bill in New York, saying it would increase operating expenses.

Tre Kwon, a nurse at Mount Sinai, said, “It takes a lot of courage to point a finger at the hospital directors about the needs of patients. It really showed the boss how fired up we are and how passionate and fearless nurses are.”

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Mississippi Casino Workers Win Union Contract

Unite Here! members from Beau Rivage and IP Casinos complete Shop Steward training on August 27, Biloxi, MS

At the beginning of September, the workers at the Beau Rivage Casino (owned by MGM Resorts International) voted to form a union. That makes the Beau Rivage the third casino on the Gulf Coast to unionize. Over 1,000 workers at the Beau Rivage are included in the union. They are represented by the MGM Gaming Workers Council, which is comprised of Unite Here Local 23, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 891, and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 406.

Under the union contract, workers will see a pay increase—in fact the highest across-the-board pay increase that Unite Here! has managed to win for any group of workers on the Gulf Coast. But the pay increase is only part of the win. Workers at the casino now have the option to join the union health insurance plan at a lower rate.

They are also no longer isolated individuals, fireable at will; they are part of a collective bargaining arrangement. That means that whatever issues they have with the owners or management in the future, the have the backing of their other co-workers and the rest of the union. Other MGM workers are already unionized in Las Vegas, Tunica, and New Orleans.

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Disney Workers United Win Big!

For months, Disney World workers struggled to get a new union contract. This fight has taken over nine months, with workers taking to the streets and marching outside key locations such as the Disney Springs shopping complex near Orlando. Participants in these actions included everyone from cast members to custodians at Disney’s Florida establishments. The hard work has now paid off, however, with a new contract.

The contract has been negotiated by the Service Trades Council Union, which is comprised of six unions, and represents 38,000 workers. With the four-year contract, starting pay will go from $10 and hour to $15 an hour by 2021. The contract is the result of the unions sticking to their guns. Back in May, Disney offered to implement $15 an hour starting pay, with the caveat that they would cut protections and benefits. The unions refused the deal, and now the workers have gotten the raise they demanded without losing any key benefits or protections. The unionized workers will also be getting a $1,000 bonus that Disney had previously withheld during negotiation

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UPS Workers Fighting for Contract

The current round of UPS contract negotiations has not yet come to a conclusion. UPS workers are represented by the Teamsters Union, with the largest private sector union contract in the U.S. The UPS Teamsters are comprised of 260,000 members in the UPS package division and UPS freight. These workers occupy a potentially-powerful position in the US economy which, like the rest of the world economy, is driven more and more by logistics and distribution. UPS is still the top logistics corporation in the U.S., though they are facing increasing competition from non-unionized Amazon.

The main point of contention is the creation of a two-tiered hiring system. Under this set-up, there would be regular drivers and so-called “hybrid drivers.” These drivers would deliver packages part-time and do other work for the rest of their shifts. They would not be guaranteed forty hours a week, would receive less pay, and would not be eligible for overtime when working weekends.

On September 7, Teamsters in Louisville, Kentucky, held a “vote-no” rally at a UPS freight operation. At the rally, Local 89 president Fred Zuckerman said, “The big thing is we need to get this rejected.” Zuckerman believes that workers in the union will not go for a system that will drive a wedge between regular drivers and the hybrid drivers. According to some in the union, such a system would ultimately undermine regular drivers as well, since the company would have an incentive to push higher paid, regular drivers out and replace them with hybrid drivers. The deadline for voting is October 5.

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Unions Make Big Gains in Texas

As the present crisis of the capitalist world system continues, we are seeing organized struggle cropping up in places where movements have long seemed dormant. The increasing frequency of labor struggles in the south is a case in point.

Texas is usually described as a “conservative” and pro-business state. Like Louisiana, Texas workers lack many basic legal protections, whereas corporations are allowed to get away with barely paying taxes and health and safety regulations are scant. Texas has a poverty level close to that of Louisiana.

In 2017 alone, 81,000 Texas workers joined unions, increasing the states’ unionization level from 4 percent of the workforce to 4.7 percent. That’s still a low rate compared to some other states, but such growth in a single year is nothing to scoff at. It shows an increasing awareness on the part of the working class that we must organize and fight back.

It looks like the organizing is paying off, too. There have been big pushes for paid sick days in San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas (Austin and San Antonio city councils have now passed ordinances mandating paid sick days, though reactionary state politicians who represent the bosses are challenging them in the courts). With the union, Unite Here!, 500 Hyatt employees won the first ever contract for workers in San Antonio’s famous River Walk tourist area in 2015. Despite challenges from the United Airlines bosses, United catering workers in Houston have made progress and will soon be able to vote on unionization, along with fellow employees in Newark, Denver, San Francisco, and Honolulu