At the end of March 2021, a unionization drive in Bessemer, Alabama, by the Retail Workers (RWDSU) — one of the earliest attempts to organize an Amazon fulfillment center — failed to get the requisite numbers for certification. The campaign nevertheless highlighted workers’ frustrations over health and safety and created anxieties among Amazon executives over future unionization drives.
That apprehension was manifested a few weeks later. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, was stepping down as formal head of Amazon (though remaining as executive chairman) and felt compelled, in his “farewell” letter to shareholders, to react to the growing criticisms of Amazon’s treatment of its workers. Then the world’s richest person, Bezos asserted that Amazon “cared deeply for our hourly employees, and we’re proud of the work environment we’ve created.”
He did, however, go on to admit that Amazon clearly needed “a better vision for our employees’ success.” This, he grandiloquently declared, would come from an “addition” to Amazon’s fundamental values: “We are going to be Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work.” This promise was very quickly enshrined as one of Amazon’s basic operating principles.
Fast forward three years to March 2024. Reality had exposed the shallowness of Amazon’s commitment, and Amazon’s VP for Global Workplace Health and Safety was assigned to publish a rebuttal. The VP praised Amazon’s “transparency” in dealing with health and safety and proudly shared concrete evidence of its new “caring” trajectory. Amazon’s injury rate at its fulfillment centers,…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Sam Gindin
