Amazon workers have filed a notice to hold a unionization vote at a fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. They’re aiming to form a 1,500 worker strong bargaining unit with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
There are 400,000 Amazon warehouse workers in the United States. If the workers succeed in getting a majority vote for the union, they will be the first of many warehouse workers who will finally have a say over safety standards, training, breaks, and pay at their workplace.
The union is focused on improving working conditions which have caused the deaths of 19 workers at Amazon facilities since 2013. RWDSU also aims to put an end to the “fire-at-will” policy currently in place for warehouse workers.
Amazon will no doubt carry out a ruthless campaign against the union. An investigation by Vice News recently revealed that the company has long employed full-time spies to root out and crush organizing on the job. Company CEO Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to share the $70 billion he’s made since March while 20,000 of ‘his’ workers have come down with COVID. But with courage and determination, the workers can carry the day.
Auto Workers Fell for Bosses’ Racist Lie, Lost Jobs Anyway!
By Gavrielle Gemma
In 1982 two white working-class men brutally murdered Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese worker in Detroit. For Vincent, this was his wedding day that was never to be.
In 1982 auto bosses and politicians were waving flags and spewing racism by saying it was Japan’s fault that auto plants were closing. Japanese cars were burned on the street. The auto bosses laughed as they shifted the blame from the greedy company owners to innocent Asian people.
Auto Companies Used Profits to Speed Up and Move Plants Abroad
Layoffs were widespread in the auto industry because the auto companies took the millions in profit made from the labor of workers and sent their plants to other countries around the world to pay low wages. They also reinvested these profits in new technology that made more cars with fewer workers.
Workers should have fought for the profits produced by their labor to be used to benefit their communities instead of benefiting the company owners’ pocketbooks. The U.S. auto unions should have and still should make solidarity with autoworkers around the world. This is the way to raise wages for all.
Today, both Trump and Biden are trying to get us to blame China for everything. They’re trying to get workers to buy into their trade war and prepare for an out and out shooting war. But the Chinese government is not the one refusing to give us economic aid, evict us, or throw us in jail. They’re not letting our children go hungry or killing us with COVID-19.
A tiny handful of disgustingly rich people have used their hoarded wealth to buy mansions and Ferraris while 40 million of us are unemployed. Trump’s giant tax cuts for the rich weren’t used to create jobs but to buy more mansions. A few hundred billionaires in the U.S.—OPP would comfortably house all of them—have increased their wealth by $1,000,000,000 since the beginning of the pandemic.
It’s time we looked the problem in the face. Greedy capitalists and the politicians that protect them are at the root of our troubles. We need to organize for living wage jobs, to cancel our debts, to stop evictions and foreclosures, and end hunger. We need to say no to anti-Asian racism, yes to unity. There are so many more of us than the tiny handful of capitalists. Let’s flex our muscle and fight the real enemy.
A global coalition of warehouse workers, unions, and climate activists organized protests on Black Friday calling out Amazon’s attacks on workers and the environment. Amazon workers were stripped of hazard pay in May and given a meager $150-$300 holiday bonus. According to the coalition, “Jeff Bezos could pay a $105,000 bonus to every Amazon worker and still be as rich as he was at the start of the pandemic.” Ultra-billionaire Bezos’ wealth surpassed $200 billion in August, while Amazon workers here and around the world continue to risk their lives working during a pandemic without paid sick leave, hazard pay, or a living wage. Jeff Bezos is part of an elite class of billionaires who have seen their wealth increase by $1 trillion since the beginning of the pandemic. Corporate bosses and politicians are working us to death so they can get rich. We must take to the streets and demand people over profits!
Shipt is an Uber-like app-based grocery company recently bought out by Target. Shipt workers have been risking their lives and the lives of their families to make sure people have access to food and other goods amid a deadly pandemic. On October 20, over 20 Shipt workers demonstrated outside the company’s headquarters in Birmingham, AL to protest pay cuts and tips-stealing by the company. Some workers have reported that they have been making less than minimum wage. This is common (and legal) among gig workers who are classified as “independent contractors” and is one of the main reasons that companies like Uber, Lyft, Instacart, etc. spend so much money lobbying the government to make sure that these workers aren’t considered employees in the eyes of the law.
In August, Target reported that Shipt’s revenue had gone up by more than 300% percent since the pandemic began. But workers are having their wages cut and still don’t have access to healthcare, paid sick leave or other benefits. Clearly, the bosses don’t care if we live or die as long as they’re raking in profits from our labor, but these workers are standing up and fighting back. Solidarity with Shipt workers and all essential workers fighting to secure their long overdue rights!
Veterans and members of the American Federation of Government Employees have been rallying across the country to protest Trump’s attack on unions and VA workers’ rights. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) represents about 260,000 VA workers across the country. They have been fighting for nearly a year to get a contract with the VA that preserves some of the rights and workplace protections that they’ve managed to win in previous negotiations. The VA, headed by secretary Robert Wilkie, has insisted on contract terms that would bar VA workers from negotiating shift changes and wages and make it harder to go after workplace abuse, discrimination, and unsafe conditions.
Trump has already limited VA workers’ access to union representation and membership. These attacks are part of a longstanding effort to get private profiteering corporations to take over the VA and other government agencies which most veterans and workers oppose as it would result in a loss of benefits, lower wages, and worse care.
The most recent move by Trump and Wilkie has been to force negotiations to be decided by a panel stocked with Trump appointees. Predictably, the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) sided with Wilkie and Trump. Among other attacks, the FSIP removed all provisions regarding the pandemic including the requirement that employees be notified about safety protocols and that workers aren’t forced to use their leave time when they’re sent home because of a pandemic.
The union is fighting the decision in the courts. Outside of the courts, the struggle continues. Federal workers deserve our support as they fight back against the attacks of profit hungry vultures like Trump and his cronies.
Workers in Virginia— a longtime anti-union (“right to work”) state— won a major victory earlier this year with the passage of a state law that allows city employees to engage in collective bargaining beginning May 2021. Collective bargaining means that workers will actually have a say in their pay and working conditions, as opposed to the bosses making all these decisions. But Virginia Beach city workers aren’t waiting until May rolls around. In November, workers in Public Works, Public Utilities, and Parks and Recreation and Human Services rallied outside of the City Council in Virginia Beach, VA demanding higher wages, hazard pay, an end to threats by their bosses, and democratically-elected worker leaders in each department.
City workers across the country—custodial workers, sanitation workers, firefighters, EMS, etc.—are facing wage cuts and layoffs during the pandemic. They are saving lives and making sure our cities are clean and running—all while facing high risks of infection—but bosses and politicians don’t want to give them a living wage or hazard pay and an end to threats by their bosses.
The first bailout amounted to $2.3 trillion. This included $300 billion in stimulus checks, $377 billion to small business (big corps took a lot of that), $389 billion to state and local government, 100 billion to hospitals and $454 billion went to a slush fund administered by Treasury secretary Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs banker and the “Foreclosure King” in 2008. This slush fund is unspent and reserved for corporations.; this fund is projected to grow to a value of over $4 trillion.
The Federal Reserve is used as a slush fund for Wall Street
The Federal Reserve bank has trillions of dollars of our money. Instead of working for the people, they have approved unlimited asset purchases, or “infinity” spending, to bail out the banks and Wall Street. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed is not going to run out of ammunition to keep stock prices high. Every week, they use millions to buy stocks in private companies. While we sink into debt, the rich are on their yachts, making champagne toasts to new heights reached by Wall Street.
Welfare for war profiteers, nothing for those of us who do the real work
The Pentagon budget with all its offshoots is over $1 trillion a year. This money comes from looting the taxpayers and using 65% of the federal budget. It goes in the hands of business owners who profit from endless war and never-ending bombs, jets, nuclear aircraft carriers, and more. This is why the U.S. keeps 800 bases and last year created a Space Force division in order to bring war to outer space, which is against international law.
Federal officials like to say there isn’t enough money to support workers through a lockdown. But we know that’s a lie. We have to demand they use the budget for the people instead of using it to terrorize the world and make arms dealers richer.
U.S. Billionaires Have Gained $1 Trillion Since Pandemic Started
No war! Make vaccines, not bombs! Money for the people, not war profiteers!
Nearly 300,000 people have died unnecessarily from COVID-19 in the U.S., including over 6,500 in Louisiana. Millions more have been sickened by the disease, some of whom have permanent scarring. This is nothing less than mass murder. The hands of the rich ruling class are stained with the blood of Indigenous, Black, and brown folks, of working class people, of elders and people with disabilities.
If the rich and their government lackeys get their way, hundreds of thousands more of us will be sacrificed so they can keep making profits off our backs.
Governments around the world have shown that COVID-19 can be stopped by enacting measures that put people before profits. Why haven’t U.S. politicians come through with relief and a real plan to stop the spread? Because without us being forced back to work, the owners and bosses can’t continue to make money off us. Politicians answer to the corporate bosses. It’s time we say, “No more!”
Right wing defenders of “the freedom to die from COVID” who promote reckless and selfish behavior are the puppets for the profit masters. They are fools. At the same time, it is unreasonable to think we can do what is best for our health and the health of our communities unless bold governmental policies are enacted.
We have to put the people first to defeat COVID-19. We have a right to life and our health. Demand the emergency relief necessary to protect our communities!
Declare War on COVID, Give Emergency Relief Now
Step One:
Get immediate relief to workers in two weeks’ time:
Insure all people get a guaranteed income. Stop withholding relief to force workers back to work while the rich stay home.
Halt all evictions, foreclosures, and utility cutoffs.
Equip medical personnel (including cleaning, laundry, cafeteria, clerical staff) and all essential workers (including truck drivers, postal workers, store workers, and deliverers) with highest level of PPE. Manufacturing of medical gear and PPE should be ordered to meet need without regard to private profits.
Expand SNAP and food deliveries.
Step Two:
Shut it all down for 3 weeks & enact measures that make it possible for people to stay home and stop the spread:
Make internet accessible and free to all.
Secure free, quality childcare for essential workers.
Set up free video and phone call access to loved ones for incarcerated people, nursing, and group home residents.
Make PPE, neighborhood testing, and health care available at no cost. End racist disparity in access and treatment.
Ban profits from vaccines, and outfit factories to produce vaccines quickly. Cooperate internationally to distribute vaccines. No one will be safe until everyone is safe.
Enact emergency declaration that makes defeating COVID-19 the top priority for national security. Use military budget for the people not war profiteers.
Forgive debts on student loans, credit cards, and loans taken out to survive.
Release nonviolent prisoners.
Include undocumented in all relief programs. They put food on the country’s tables and so much more. Everyone must be included in the plan to stop the spread.
Distribute aid to genuinely small business; stop big businesses from stealing those funds.
On November 28, dozens of people from across the state assembled at the gates of the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge to demand justice for Quawan Charles. Charles’ family reported the 15-year old Quawan missing on October 30 yet Baldwin, LA police failed to investigate or issue a missing person’s alert. Three days later, Quawan’s mutilated body was found in a creek near a sugar cane field. Quawan’s stepfather Jason Nelson spoke against the racist double standards at play and said that there should have been a “Quawan alert” since an “Amber alert” had not been issued. With the support of the community, Quawan’s family promised to keep fighting for justice. “[The police] are going to just sit down behind their desk and wait, and wait, and wait and think we’re going to forget,” he said. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder, so just like they’ve got forever to wait, we’ve got forever to keep fighting.”
Put on by the House of Tulip, New Orleans’ Trans Day of Remembrance was a day of looking back at a year of extreme violence against the Trans community. Gathering near Bayou St. John, people sat on blankets eating food and enjoying the presence of their friends and chosen family. To paraphrase one of the leaders, “We will not be marching. We are here to acknowledge not only those who’ve been lost to us, but to celebrate our lives as well.”
The main part of the event was a panel consisting of Black Trans people of varying ages. Seeing Black trans elders able to tell their stories was critically important, since anti-Black transphobic violence often takes them away too soon. This was an intentional act on the part of leadership, one that many in the crowd appreciated.
The Black Trans community of New Orleans is one that is as powerful as it is still thriving. Being able to bear witness and experience joy and camaraderie in the face of a pandemic is just as important as doing political work. May we always be able to find a balance.
