Portland, Ore.
The majority Black workforce in Bessemer is challenging the world’s richest human, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, in their fight to be recognized by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Bezos is so desperate to bust the union drive, he is illegally offering workers $2,000 to $3,000 “resignation bonuses.”
Speaking in East New York, part of Brooklyn, N.Y., outside an Amazon fulfillment center, Omowale Clay from the D12 Movement said: “A yes vote for the union will be a mighty blow against Amazon. A win in Bessemer will be a shot in the arm to organized labor, which will be heard around the world!”
Bessemer, Alabama: The whole world is watching
By Editor posted on February 22, 2021
An injury to one is an injury to all.
This famous labor slogan, popularized by the Industrial Workers of the World over a century ago, is more meaningful today than ever. But it has a double meaning for workers at Amazon, where the workplace injury rate is exceptionally high due to the backbreaking, fast-paced work.
Their pain is felt by “all,” as in the slogan the working class and oppressed of the world who are watching with rapt attention the struggle for union representation in Bessemer, Ala. Warehouse workers, a huge majority of them Black and almost half of them women, are voting by mail in a National Labor Relations Board-supervised election running from Feb. 8 to March 29. The outcome, which could lead to the first unionized Amazon facility in the U.S., will be announced after all the ballots are counted.