On the first day, the organizers want to think about the staff

In our case the home page doesn’t undo you, today (and tomorrow) is Prime Day. For Prime members, that means deals, deals, deals. For Amazon warehouse workers, it usually means mandatory overtime, or as the MET company sums it up. MET increases the work schedule that is already taxed: a typical warehouse shift does 10 hours of physical work with two 30-minute breaks. (The policies are less consistent for delivery drivers because most of them work a network of contractors, but suffice it to say that their workloads will be reversed.) At the same time, something else is on the rise: Amazon’s working conditions analysis.

The recent union in Bessemer, Alabama has attracted national attention in the e-commerce giant on labor issues, and has attracted criticism. Bernie Sanders and Representative Andy Levin From Michigan, who serves on the Housing Education and Employment Committee. Earlier this month Washington Post he published a report he called Amazon’s poor security record, and last week The New York Times during the pandemic he examined the company’s Human Resources failures and turnover rate. Jeff Bezos winked at some critics in a letter to shareholders in April, saying Amazon was “The Best Business on Earth” and “The Safest Place to Work on the Earth” (even when it was preparing to leave the Earth) behind). While there are workers protests around Prime Day nothing new, arguably having more teeth this year.

So while buyers are trying to make some savings this week, several groups across the country are trying to organize a massive and inflated workforce for the company. And they are coming together from multiple angles.

First, Bessemer is living the dream of unionizing the warehouse. After the decision lose union elections in april, retail, wholesale and department store union (RWDSU) challenge results, accusing Amazon of misconduct. The decision of the National Labor Relations Commission is expected immediately. If the hearing officer is in favor of the union, he can re-run the election, even though Amazon has appealed that ruling.

Meanwhile, a more inadequate union unit is operating around Staten Island in New York. It is run by Amazon’s independent workers ’union, which is made up of grassroots workers. Teamsters, in particular, says the logistics worker is the largest union in the country, saying it has something big in the works. “Focusing on a single facility and the weak legal procedures and difficulties in enforcing America are not enough to win against monopoly corporations like Amazon,” said team national team leader Randy Korgan. he wrote in Beauty salon before this week’s annual agreement.

Rebecca Kolins Givan Rutgers, a professor of labor relations, says that any group organized on Amazon, big or small, has great difficulties. The company’s tremendous tactics were on display in Bessemer: $ 375 an hour for union consultants, a month-long messaging campaign scattered across multiple communication channels, and the ability to change. traffic patterns on a whim. “Amazon has the law and billions of dollars in its favor,” Givan says. “Thinking in creative ways to deal with these challenges is just a good thing” for the organizers.

The 118-year-old 1.4 million-member Teamsters union has the resources and experience on its side. But Christian Smalls, a former Staten Island assistant collaborator, believes Amazon needs a non-traditional approach. Last year Amazon released Smalls after leading a protest to denounce the company’s Covid-19 response. Then meeting notes were leaked Smalls, who is black, called Amazon’s chief advisor who calls him “not smart or articulate” and showed his intention to become “the face of the entire union / organizer movement” for Smalls to eat into the company. He helped create the Essential Workers Congress, an annual working group that supports the Amazon Union on the Staten Island album.