#amazonstrike

Cops bust picket line as Teamsters strike seven Amazon warehouses

By Natascha Elena Uhlmann

March 30th 2020 // 

Hundreds of Amazon workers on a Staten Island facility today walked out on strike for their health and safety. Simultaneously, Instacart began their strike for their own health and safety. WholeFoods will join them in this strike tomorrow. Millions rely on both of these services in addition to local grocery stores for their necessities during this pandemic and yet workers are STILL not equipped to safety contain COVID-19 cases.

Officials reported there only being 1 confirmed case in the JFK8 Amazon Facility, but the workers on strike today said there were at the very least 10 cases, which you can see here on this livestream, granted it doesn’t get taken down. This is where my blood fucking boils.

In the county I live in there’s “1 confirmed case” at our Amazon facility. There’s also at least 1 case in another local grocery. Both of these locations are close to the Target store where I work. When I read that the local grocery store “quarantined the employee with the case” and “extended their cleaning to daytime hours as well” I started fucking fuming. It’s just not fucking enough, I know they aren’t getting enough supplies to properly contain this shit. I know there’s not much that can be done when they’re still open for operations. I know jack shit is gonna change and the shit is just gonna spread. It’s potentially going to get worse because who knows if anything was properly contained.

It’s fucking ridiculous. We’re basically out here fearing losing our lives or our financial stability.

So, please. Don’t cross these Amazon worker’s picket line, stop using Amazon and Instacart. 

Sure! My dumb fucking post may not help on its own, but it’s the least I can do. This fucking frightens me as someone also working in a grocery/department store with arguably tactless cleaning procedures and the lack of truly enforced social distancing as the spread of COVID-19 increases. Please, I know these places are providing vital services, but these are absolutely quickly becoming hubs for people to transmit to larger numbers of people. It’s just not safe anymore.

Terrified that independent booksellers might get some tiny share of the season of gifts, good will, and profits, Amazon has just announced that anybody who goes into a local bookstore, scans an item, goes home, and buys the same item from Amazon will get up to five dollars off the price.

If you are really into destroying your community in order to save a buck, Amazon will provide you a phone app for this specific purpose.

from Ursula K. LeGuin’s website, undated, but probably from 2011

By Sharon Black

The recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) nationwide settlement that forces Amazon to notify workers of their rights to organize for union representation is a victory for Amazon workers and all workers. 

By Sharon Black

The first crack in the Amazon empire is officially opened! It came on April 1, when the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) won its election to represent the 8,000 warehouse workers at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island, New York.

It has given confidence to workers in Amazon warehouses and facilities across the country. Chris Smalls, interim Amazon Labor Union president, has stated that the ALU has already heard from 50 warehouses interested in organizing.

By Sharon Black 

The workers’ movement owes a tremendous debt to the courage of the majority-Black workers in Bessemer, Ala., who stood up to global supply-chain giant Amazon.

What they have accomplished may not be fully measurable at this point. But what’s certain is that their audacity and courage pushed workers’ issues at the sweatshop warehouses run by billionaire Jeff Bezos to center stage, along with workers’ right to a union.