‘I support Amazon warehouse workers’: Bernie Sanders supports Bold Union Drive in Alabama

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Workers at one of the nation’s most anti-union companies in one of the states most hostile to organized labor received a welcome boost this week from Senator Bernie Sanders, who tweeted his wholehearted support for what he said could be a “shot heard around the world.”

“Yes [Alabama Amazon employees] can negotiate higher wages and better working conditions in the South, it will benefit all workers in America. “
—Sen. Bernie sanders

As an important first step, workers at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Bessemer, Alabama, outside Birmingham, filed a notice with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Washington Post—which is owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos – reports.

The notice says warehouse workers plan to hold an election to create a collective bargaining unit to represent some 1,500 full-time and part-time employees of the facility under the auspices of the Mid-South Council of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store. Union (RWDSU).

Sanders (I-Vt.) First weighed in on the issue with a tweet on Monday claiming that “all workers have the right to decent wages and working conditions, which is why I support warehouse workers at Amazon in Alabama, exercising their constitutional right to form a union. “

“Mr. Bezos, the richest person in America, must not interfere in this election,” added Sanders, a staunch supporter of organized work and living wages throughout his more than four decades of service. public.

Tweeting again Tuesday, Sanders said that “if Amazon workers in Alabama – a strongly anti-union state – vote to form a union, it will be a gunshot heard around the world.”

“If they can negotiate higher wages and better working conditions in the South, it will benefit all American workers,” he said. “I strongly support their efforts.”

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Sanders has been re-tweeted by leading progressives including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.), who has been widely praised – and criticized – for helping lead successful opposition to Amazon’s project. to open a headquarters on the East Coast in New York. .

Earlier this month, RWDSU Alabama Secretary Allen Gregory tweeted a video encouraging Bessemer warehouse workers to unionize, a move he said “concerns dignity, respect and fair treatment on your place of work “.

“This gives you the opportunity to say, ‘Hey, Amazon, we’d like to sit down at the table. “”

It’s a seat Bezos is loath to offer. The richest person in the world – who is not only the world’s largest multicentibillionaire, but also on track to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2026 – faces high rates of unionization in countries the most favorable to work like those of the European Union.

However, Amazon has gone to great lengths to thwart organizing efforts, including bashing and firing workers who speak out against company policies and actions, hire Pinkerton anti-union infiltrators, and use anti-union surveillance software. employees.

Amazon unionization has become increasingly urgent for many workers at the company during the Covid-19 pandemic, in which Bezos’ fortunes soared by some $ 70 billion while the lesser employees well-paid companies risk their lives for a – but, according to many, insufficient – $ 15 hourly wages.

As Common dreams reported Tuesday, workers at Amazon and other companies who received welcome but temporary coronavirus risk premiums of $ 2 an hour earlier this year are claiming their resin declaration increased as the most serious phase of the pandemic coincides with an expected record amount of online vacation sales that will make Bezos even richer as many of his employees struggle to survive.

“Amazon calls us heroes in their ads, they call us essential, but it feels like we’re consumable,” said Courtenay Brown, Amazon Fresh employee. “We need … $ 5 an hour in essential wages, workplace safety and real protections against retaliation.”



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