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WILL AMAZON’S UNION CHANGE THE WORLD?

By Daniel Malloy and Charu Sudan Kasturi

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It’s the kind of workplace you can find most anywhere: a sprawling small-town
fulfillment center for Amazon. But the choice made by the nearly 6,000 workers
at this plant in Bessemer, Alabama, is ringing across the globe: Will they vote
to form a union? The result, which will be known in the coming days but could be
tied up in litigation far longer, may shake a behemoth that dominates American
commerce in a way no company ever has. The ramifications will also ripple
through American politics and a labor movement that has seen its power drip
away. But at a time of incredible economic churn and yawning inequality across
the globe, unions are innovating to find their voice from Silicon Valley to
Karachi. Brothers and sisters, let us join together to fill you in.

WHY BESSEMER MATTERS

Amazon Dominoes. If Bessemer’s union drive succeeds, it would be the e-commerce
giant’s first U.S. union, which is partly why it’s drawn such global attention.
Amazon workers in Italy and Germany went on strike this week over working
conditions, and union leaders have taken calls from as far afield as South
Africa about how to organize their own union drives. And while Amazon is unique
among American tech titans for the size of its blue-collar workforce, its peers
are agitating, too. Alphabet workers mobilized in January to push Google’s
parent company for change, although it does not yet have collective bargaining
rights.

Social Union-Busting. The real threat of an organizing chain reaction is why
Amazon is responding by aggressively taking anti-union campaigns into the 21st
century. On Tuesday, Twitter shuttered several fake accounts that masqueraded as
Amazon warehouse employees while tweeting positive things about their jobs and
attacking the Bessemer union drive — a tactic similar to the one used by
Russians to influence the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in America. It’s
part of a punchier PR response (reportedly driven by CEO Jeff Bezos himself) to
address pro-union Amazon critics such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren. Combined with some classic suppression tools, such as anti-union signs
in bathroom stalls and mandatory meetings where bosses rail against unionization
efforts, Amazon is showing how to innovate union busting. Could this presage how
future battles between Big Tech and politicians play out?

Organizing While Black. “Bessemer is the new Selma,” civil rights leader Rev.
William Barber II said at a rally with union organizers. Racial justice themes
have infused the Alabama union drive: The vast majority of the workers at the
fulfillment center, about 20 miles outside of Birmingham, are Black, and a
majority are female, underscoring that the face of labor in 2021 is far from the
white male autoworkers of yore. In fact, Black workers are more likely to be
unionized (12.3 percent) than any other ethnic group. There’s substantial
crossover with the Black Lives Matter movement, as many of the workers supported
BLM marches and joined efforts to take down Confederate statues in Birmingham.
Look for the next phase of organizing to be Black-led and infused with BLM
tactics.

More Than Money. Union drives are often about negotiating power for better
wages, but with Amazon — which has paid all of its U.S. employees at least $15
per hour since 2018 — that isn’t necessarily the case. Local organizers say this
is more about the hyper-surveillance of their movements, as Amazon tracks
everything, down to each time an employee touches a package. “People tell us
they feel like robots who are being managed by robots,” Stuart Appelbaum,
president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, told The New
Yorker. Reports indicate that underperforming employees are even targeted for
firing by robots. An Amazon spokesperson tells OZY that Appelbaum is
“misrepresenting the facts” and “our employees know the truth — starting wages
of $15 or more, health care from day one, and a safe and inclusive workplace. We
encouraged all of our employees to vote, and their voices will be heard in the
days ahead.”

Whose Side Are You On. After Donald Trump helped scramble the politics of
organized labor by wooing away many blue-collar voters, many Republicans are
trying to brand themselves as the workers’ party — leading Sen. Marco Rubio of
Florida to embrace the Bessemer union drive. But no other big-name Republicans
have joined him, and promoting labor-friendly policies remains the domain of
Democrats, who are embracing unions with renewed vigor from President Joe Biden
on down. Democrats are pushing a federal bill that would override state “right
to work” laws — designed to diminish union power by preventing workplaces from
requiring union membership — which are on the books in 28 states, including
Alabama. Washington’s most powerful Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, recently floated the idea of the reverse — a national right to work
law — if Republicans retake power, after a scorched-earth session with
Democrats.

ORGANIZING THE GIG ECONOMY

Pandemic Push. Their companies are cutthroat rivals. But drivers of Uber and its
biggest Indian competitor, Ola, are banding together with other gig worker
groups in the country to create an “umbrella union” that would advocate for all
of them. Gig workers in India have particularly been hammered by the pandemic:
One study released by Azim Premji University researchers shows that 23 percent
of workers in the informal sector in Bangalore lost their jobs, and 15 percent
remain unemployed nearly a year after lockdowns began. If such a pan-industry
union of gig workers takes off in the world’s largest democracy, it’s only a
matter of time before the idea spreads elsewhere.

 


Drink to Millennials. Unions haven’t exactly been a growth industry lately, but
there’s one demographic that’s becoming more union-friendly: millennials. That
trend has been true in recent years and through the pandemic: 25- to
34-year-olds were the only age bracket that rose in the labor ranks as companies
shed jobs left and right from 2019 to 2020, according to U.S. federal data. The
young unionizers are shaking up workplaces with scant union history, from
digital media to Hollywood writers rooms, speaking a language of activism that
would be foreign to their brothers and sisters in the steel mills of the past.
And since millennials are now the largest generation in the workforce and
increasingly helming leadership roles, that could lead to more worker-friendly
corporate cultures going forward. Read more on OZY.

Friends With Benefits. Unions tied to specific industries or companies likely
aren’t the future, given that a majority of American workers are expected to be
freelancers by 2027. But freelancers need representatives even more than
full-time workers. And Freelancers Union, with more than 500,000 members, is
offering a new model by promising health insurance and networking opportunities.
The union hopes those benefits will attract freelance workers and build its
numbers, which could help it collectively bargain with governments and
industries on freelancers’ behalf.




App-ly Yourself. Campaigning outside factory gates with pamphlets outlining your
cause is no longer an efficient way to unionize when many of your members are
likely working online, at home. Cue the rise of a new wave of apps designed
specifically to organize labor digitally. There’s UnionConnect, which helps
unions communicate directly with their members, while creating a personalized
dashboard for each worker to track details about their company and union that
matter to them. Walmart employees have used an app called WorkIt, which uses
artificial intelligence to answer questions about their rights and allows labor
leaders and workers to set up virtual chat rooms where they can brainstorm. And
then there’s UnionBase, a Facebook of sorts for the workers movement where
unions can set up verified pages and members can communicate with each other. It
currently boasts 30,000 American unions as members.

 


From “I Gotta Feeling” to “Scream and Shout,” whether with the Black Eyed Peas
or alone, the impact Will.i.am made on the music of the 2010s is undeniable. But
why does this acclaimed artist call himself much more of a computer scientist
than a musician? Today on the Carlos Watson Show, futurist and tech wiz
Will.i.am gets real about friendship, love and machines. Get to know this
thinker beyond his beats and hear why he thinks it’s important for robots to
learn that Black Lives Matter.

CHANGING GLOBAL CURRENTS



Bourgeois Communists. China is home to the world’s largest trade union, the
All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which has nearly as many members (around
300 million) as America’s entire population. It’s also the country’s only
legally recognized union, and the Communist Party cracks down on efforts to form
independent unions. But none of that’s helping Beijing manage growing
disenchantment among Chinese workers, visible in an explosion of labor disputes.
The country has witnessed 530 known strikes in the past seven months, which
represents a 30 percent uptick from the previous seven-month stretch. Can these
labor pains deliver a new balance of power between Beijing and the country’s
working class?

Free to Choose. Mexico might be learning the lessons China hasn’t. For decades,
workers could negotiate with employers only through a set of government-approved
unions. A nexus between the government, big corporations and corrupt union
leaders meant it was impossible for workers to engage in any meaningful
collective bargaining. Not anymore. Under current President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador, Mexico has amended labor laws to allow workers to form and join
independent unions of their choice. Measures like these have helped AMLO retain
a ridiculously high popularity rating — 64 percent in February — even though
Mexico has the world’s second highest COVID-19 death toll.



Pakistan’s 80 Percent. They’ve been ignored for generations. Now, the women who
constitute 80 percent of Pakistan’s home-based workforce, running cottage
businesses that hold up much of the country’s economy, have had enough. They’re
organizing like never before, forming trade unions and winning battles for
better working conditions. So much so that the country’s mainstream
male-dominated labor unions, which have been on the decline for years, are now
turning to these female labor activists for inspiration.



Workers of the World, Tweet! Of course, the challenge of declining union
membership is hardly unique to Pakistan. In Australia, another country with a
strong history of labor movements, unions are reinventing themselves by using
social media platforms as central organizing tools, moving away from the stilted
language of earlier generations and adopting the lingo of millennials and Gen
Zers. They’re staying relevant, now pressuring the Australian government to
raise the federal minimum wage, among other causes. Memes might do for them what
Marx couldn’t. Read more on OZY.

 


Owning Their Future. Tunisia’s labor movement was a pivotal pillar of the Arab
Spring protests that brought down dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Now
the Tunisian General Labour Union is plotting another revolution by helping
workers buy the defunct factories and businesses where they previously worked,
getting them financial assistance and legal support to help them own their
destinies.

HISTORY’S MOST POWERFUL UNIONS

Protest like an Egyptian. The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” was the anthem of
Egypt’s protests during the Arab Spring that began in 2010. But in reality, they
needn’t have looked anywhere beyond Egypt for inspiration. More than three
millennia ago, tomb builders and craftsmen stopped work and marched in protest
against their pharaoh, Ramses III, after their pay had been repeatedly delayed.
Pastries couldn’t pacify them despite chants of “we are hungry!” and, after
multiple strikes, they got their wages. It’s the first known labor strike in
history, and inspired similar strikes across the Egyptian empire in subsequent
centuries.

Shaking the Soviets. If taking on the pharaoh was fraught with danger,
challenging the Soviet Union-backed Polish politburo in the 1980s was no less
risky. That’s what the trade union Solidarity did, drawing its initial strength
from protests by shipyard workers in Gdansk before growing into a national
phenomenon with 10 million members within a year. Under pressure from Moscow,
the Polish government imposed martial law and cracked down on Solidarity. But
the movement continued underground, emerging as a fulcrum of fresh protests that
ultimately led to the fall of communism in Poland. Its influence was so evident
that Solidarity leader and Nobel laureate Lech Wałęsa became the country’s first
president in 1990 after its transition to a democracy.

Breaking Apartheid’s Bank. In racially segregated 1980s South Africa, the
government effectively owned homes in “townships” that reserved residential
neighborhoods for people of color. The apartheid regime’s handpicked Black foot
soldiers managed these townships and collected rent from residents, in a scheme
that also helped swell the regime’s coffers. The Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU), formed in 1985, played a central role in disrupting that
exploitative model: It helped coordinate rent boycotts across more than 50
townships, leading to nearly $100 million in unpaid rents to the government by
1989. Today, COSATU is battling its traditional ally, the African National
Congress government, over wage disputes. As South Africa’s largest trade union,
it has been a key power broker that’s helped the ANC stay in control of South
Africa. But could labor now bring down the party of Nelson Mandela?

Vaccine Voice. Brazil’s biggest trade union, the Central Única dos Trabalhadores
(CUT), also gained prominence while taking on a repressive regime: the
U.S.-backed military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. That
struggle helped shape the union’s argument that “growth is not enough” — the
economy expanded at 10 percent some years, but the poor remained poor while
labor rights were crushed. CUT’s influence has only grown this century, with
former trade unionist Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva instituting massive social
welfare schemes (including the Bolsa Família) when he was president from 2003
through 2010. Now the CUT’s leading protests against controversial President
Jair Bolsonaro. Its latest demand? Universal COVID-19 vaccines for Brazilians,
who have seen the world’s third-highest death toll.

 


Activists of Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) take part in a silent
demonstration in front of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) office
urging the municipal corporation to issue a monthly compensation for jobless
construction labourers and free testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus, in
Bangalore on August 24, 2020. (Photo by Manjunath Kiran / AFP) (Photo by
MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Modi’s Achilles Heel? Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has steamrolled his
democratic opposition in repeated elections, ignoring concerns of religious
minorities and students to retain his popularity with vast sections of the
majority-Hindu electorate. But there are chinks in his armor, none more so than
the growing frustration with his policies among the country’s massive working
class. In January 2020, an estimated 250 million workers joined strikes and
flooded India’s streets in protest of economic policies that critics say benefit
big private firms over small businesses and state-owned enterprises. But will
worker unity stand in the face of Modi’s use of Hindu nationalism to bait (and
divide) voters?

The Battle of Blair Mountain. It was the largest armed uprising since the Civil
War. In 1921, some 10,000 workers marched southward from the West Virginia state
capital of Charleston to anti-union counties in an effort to protest coal
companies’ complete control of the territory. They were met by a force of 3,000
law enforcement officers and militiamen at Blair Mountain in Logan County, where
a protracted battle ensued — with many of the officers firing machine guns and
the local sheriff chartering planes to bomb the union men. Federal troops were
called in to stop the fighting, which left scores dead. The battle left a
linguistic legacy, too: The term “redneck” can be traced to the red bandanas
worn around the necks of striking miners.

 * Daniel Malloy, OZY Author Contact Daniel Malloy |
 * Charu Sudan Kasturi, OZY Author Contact Charu Sudan Kasturi




KASTURI




The Daily Dose April 1, 2021


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