Support the BAmazon Union.

Happy Thursday, and welcome back. Today I'm spotlighting the unionization efforts happening at an Amazon facility in Bessemer, AL. Their efforts could have a significant impact on not just Amazon but the many companies that thrive off of low-wage workers.

Thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider subscribing for $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

Ps – yes, I'm aware of the irony of citing the Washington Post in this article, and I'm glad you are too.

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TAKE ACTION

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• Follow the work of the Bessemer Union on Twitter @BAmazonUnion and their website.

• Alabama residents: Join the rally to support workers on February 6 (details on Twitter).

• Share the resources provided on the Bamazon website with Amazon employees you may know (if applicable).

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GET EDUCATED

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By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

On Monday, February 8, 5,805 workers at an Amazon facility in Alabama will decide whether they wish to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. If they vote yes, they would be the first Amazon warehouse in the United States to unionize (Washington Post). The vote-counting is scheduled to be completed by late March. This Black women-led movement is one of the greatest and most significant unionization efforts in recent history.

This organizing has placed the Bessemer, AL facility in the spotlight. The city, a working-class suburb of Birmingham, was once a powerful industrial city called “Marvel City” (Alabama Pioneers). But after steel mills exited the area decades ago, unemployment rates rose. 28% of the population (which is 72% Black) lives under the poverty line (Census.gov). The mayor said it was the largest single investment in the city’s 130-year history (CBS 42). And the jobs, which pay twice as much as the state’s minimum wage, could offer a much-needed boost (NPR).

But, according to a video by More Perfect Union, a media company covering labor issues, employees say that conditions inside are like a sweatshop, and employees are treated “worse than robots (More Perfect Union video). Employees shared more details on conditions to Michael Sainato in his article for The American Prospect: 
 

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'They work you to death,' said Sara Marie Thrasher, who worked as a 'stower,' an employee who stocks items in warehouses before they’re ordered by customers, at Amazon BHM1 [facility] in October and November 2020, before she claimed she was fired via email without warning. 'It’s crowded. Sometimes you can’t even find a station. We would get reprimanded if our stowing time was above 20 seconds or higher, with rates needing to be done in 8 seconds per item' (The American Prospect).

 

These stories reflect thousands of others that employees have shared at Amazon factories across the globe. And many of these stories are not new; here’s reporting on the issue from 2013. But conditions for many workers, including those in Bessemer, have deteriorated since the start of the pandemic. The Bessemer facilities opened in March 2020, and rules started to change quickly as the pandemic worsened. Una Massey, a former level five area manager at the facilities, tells the Guardian that rules changed rapidly weren’t adequately communicated to staff, causing more terminations and leaving the team short-staffed (The Guardian). Massey also stated that a supervisory group called Space Force designed to ensure social distancing would give final warnings to associates that were less than six feet from one another. “But that was so unfair to the associates,” she states, “because there weren’t even enough seats in the lunchroom”  (The Guardian).

In response, Amazon has gone on the offensive. The organization now forces employees to attend anti-union meetings during their shifts (Business Insider) and have plastered anti-union fliers everywhere, including bathroom stalls (Washington Post). Employees are receiving text messages and being targeted with sponsored ads on Facebook linking to the organization’s anti-union website (The Guardian). The organization is also pressing for the upcoming vote to be held in-person instead of through mail ballots, even though we’re still in a pandemic (Washington Post).

Last June, the company was celebrated for making broad statements in support of Black lives (Business Insider). But those words fail to justify their actions. Their gross profitization on the oppression of Black and brown communities is a clear example of racial capitalism, a term coined by Cedric J. Robertson, describing the process of extracting social and economic value from nonwhite communities (Harvard Law). This isn’t just reflected in Amazon’s treatment of its employees, but other aspects of its business: the racial discrimination of its AI and the partnership between their Ring and local law enforcement (The Forge). It also makes an egregious impact on the environment, which we know disproportionately affects communities of color. A September 2019 report released by the organization outlined that, in 2018, it emitted 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents into the atmosphere – roughly equal to the annual emissions of Norway (Wired).

On Tuesday, February 2, CEO Jeff Bezos announced that he’s stepping down and will be replaced by cloud executive Andy Jassy (CNBC). This news came hours after the story broke that the company will pay $61.7M in fines after stealing a percentage of drivers’ tips (TechCrunch). Since the start of the pandemic, Bezos’ net worth has increased by $70 billion. Progressive International estimated that if Bezos gave every Amazon worker a $105,000 bonus, he’d still be as rich as he was at the start of COVID-19 (Twitter). 

It’s important to remember that even with a new CEO, it’s likely that Amazon’s predatory capitalism will continue to grow. For NPR, RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum notes that this movement isn’t just a labor struggle, but a civil rights struggle, too (NPR). Supporting this initiative isn’t just a way to honor those bold organizers’ work but stand for more equitable working conditions for all laborers, especially those most vulnerable to racial capitalism. The outcome of this upcoming vote could define the future of Amazon and the labor decisions of thousands of other organizations.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

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• An Amazon facility in Bessemer, AL is planning to vote next week on unionizing.

• If completed, this will be the first unionization against Amazon

• Amazon's inadequate treatment of employees is one form of racial capitalism

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RELATED ISSUES

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9/10/2020 | Fight for fair labor.

6/29/2020 | Protect public workers.

11/1/2020 | Question billionaire philanthropy.

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PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

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Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

Question billionaire philanthropy.

Hello and Happy Sunday. Because we're likely going to be deep into the election this week, let's spend today focusing on corporate America. Jami analyzes how billionaires are often more complicit in sustaining economic and racial inequities than solving them, and unpacks the racial philanthropy gap.

This is the Anti-Racism Daily, where we send one email each day to dismantle white supremacy. You can support our work by giving one time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). You can also donate monthly or annually on Patreon. If this email was forwarded to you, you could subscribe at antiracismdaily.com.

ps – if you can, vote.

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TAKE ACTION

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• Read this Vox article that explains the racial philanthropy gap. 

• Reflect on the corporations and businesses you support. How can you work towards advancing economic equality, instead of supporting corporations that further economic inequality?

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GET EDUCATED

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By Jami Nakamura Lin (she/her)

On October 13th, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced that they were donating another $100 million to support local election offices and polling places ahead of the presidential election (Washington Post). This money followed their earlier $300 million donation towards the same cause (Vox). 

Many conservative groups decried the donations, accusing Zuckerberg of partisanship and election manipulation (The Press-Democrat). However, the bulk of the money is being funneled through the non-profit organization The Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is “regrant[ing] the money to local election officials so they can recruit poll workers, supply them with personal protective equipment, and set up drive-through voting” (Vox). The rest of the money is being distributed to Secretaries of State. 

However, there are still many other concerns with the funding (and with billionaire philanthropy in general). First, to use a popular metaphor, Zuckerberg’s money is like Band-aid over a bullet wound—the wound being how massively underfunded the elections are this year. This spring, Congressional Democrats and a wide coalition of civil rights organizations (including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAACP, and Indivisible) pushed for at least $4 billion in state election assistance (Civilrights.org), but the bill that passed only included one-tenth of that (NPR). 

Instead, municipalities are using Zuckerberg’s money to fill in the gaps, to pay for necessities like ballot drop boxes, additional poll workers, and personal protective equipment (NY Times). This is problematic when we begin to rely on private money instead of pressuring the government to adequately fund our institutions (like when we normalize GoFundMe crowdfunding as an adequate replacement for affordable healthcare.) 

It’s sometimes difficult to critique such philanthropy because the money is filling a concrete need. Zuckerberg’s donation does increase voting access. But this type of action is an example of what writer and political analyst Anand Giradharadas describes as actions the ruling class (like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos) takes to pretend that they are not, in fact, one of the sources of the problem. “This is the kind of change that allows you to stand on someone’s back while saying you’re helping them,” he explains (The Guardian). If they donate enough money, maybe we’ll forget about all their problematic, unethical business practices. 

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Generosity is not a substitute for justice... One popular [move of the ruling class] is using generosity to obscure one’s own complicity in injustice. You commit an injustice and then rely on generosity on a much smaller scale to cover it up. This is the most obvious move. This happens often enough that when you see an act of plutocratic generosity you should at a minimum be skeptical.”

Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, via an interview with The Guardian

When Jeff Bezos made a $100 million donation to the nonprofit Feeding America in June (CNBC), the gift — which made all the headlines — also functioned as a publicity stunt). This kind of free publicity can work in a corporation’s favor; in Bezos’s case, such headlines might make us forget about Amazon’s consistently poor working conditions, which have become more dangerous during COVID-19 (Vox). The amount of money also seems shockingly large, until you break it down two ways: that the donation was just .07% of his wealth, and that it came out to just $2 for each of the 46 million Americans who rely on food banks (Nonprofit Quarterly). 

In January, Bezos was worth $115 billion (CNN), but by August, he became the first person to be worth $200 billion (Forbes) — the same amount as the net wealth of the entire country of Ecuador. In a year when millions of people across the world have lost their jobs and financial stability, when his company refuses to provide data about coronavirus outbreaks to its workers, Bezos gained $85 billion, due to our global ever-growing dependence on Amazon. Meanwhile, his workers can’t even find out if there’s a coronavirus outbreak at their own warehouse (NBC). 

In short: this system of philanthropy is used to “reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth… and serves to legitimise capitalism, as well as to extend it further and further into all domains of social, cultural and political activity” (The Guardian). 

Again, it can be difficult to critique when many of the causes these billionaires support — like racial equality — are things we also believe in. But this version of philanthropy can reek of white saviorism, and can lead to a disturbing dynamic wherein “communities of color come… are forced to beg philanthropic grant makers for resources that... were earned through processes of exploitation in the first place” (Vox). 

To fight racism, we must address our society’s economic inequality. Our past newsletters have addressed the massive wealth disparities between white households and households of color. And when we look deeply at the racial and class divides in this country, we understand that no matter how much these billionaires give away, they’ll never make up for what they’re taking from the rest of America.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

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• Billionaire philanthropy often serves as a way for leaders of corporations to “commit an injustice and then rely on generosity on a much smaller scale to cover it up” (Anand Giridharadas via The Guardian)

• Jeff Bezos’s net worth has increased by over $85 billion this year — at the same time his Amazon warehouse workers suffer grueling, unsafe warehouse conditions.

• To fight racism, we must address economic inequality. 

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RELATED ISSUES

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9/30/2020 | Close the racial wealth gap.

6/30/2020 | Boycott as a form of protest.

9/10/2020 | Fight for fair labor.

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PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

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Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza