There is no bright future for the global labor movement without strong, democratic unions at Amazon.
Amazon represents the future of work for all of us. Ninety years ago, capitalists looked to General Motors as the model employer for perfecting productive efficiency, worker exploitation, and profit extraction. Today Amazon is that capitalist trailblazer, deploying AI and robotics for total workplace surveillance and work speedups, contriving new precarious employment schemes to drive down wages and foster workplace division, and amassing dominant roles in the global logistics and technology sectors.
Some in the labor movement may believe that this juggernaut is simply too big to stop. Amazon has a $2.3 trillion market capitalization; it’s the second-largest company in the world by revenue; and it recorded a staggering $59.2 billion in net profits last year.
Daunting as it may be, organizing Amazon is a task that unions must take on: Without a strong, organized worker counterweight at Amazon, the company’s abusive practices will mushroom out, driving down standards for workers everywhere, in all industries.
Efforts to unionize Amazon are not futile. When trade unions see the struggle at Amazon as a strategic priority and commit serious resources, they have shown that with support workers can overcome the barriers they face and become a force to be reckoned with.
Wildcat protests erupted at Amazon warehouses across the UK in August 2022, sparked by a lower-than-expected pay offer amid soaring inflation. At the Coventry BHX4 warehouse, workers sat down…
Auteur: Tom Vickers
