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Months just after profitable a historic victory versus Amazon with the unionization of the initial ever U.S. warehouse, JFK8, the ALU has dropped by a remaining vote of 381 to 618 in its next election at the neighboring sort centre LDJ5.
Amazon and the company media will waste no time in delivering ALU’s eulogy and crafting JFK8 off as an anomaly. We cannot give them an inch of place to declare victory – the most significant error the movement could make would be to back again down now.
Pushing as a result of this defeat will signify soberly detailing exactly what led to a victory at JFK8 and a defeat following doorway – particularly, Amazon’s extra complex union busting tactics and a narrower organizing committee with much less time to prepare.
Our enemies learn lessons from defeats. Amazon knew that a 2nd ALU victory at LDJ5 would spread like wildfire. They threw absolutely almost everything they had to defeat the union, which include resorting to intimidation, lies, and gaslighting. They took all their union busters from JFK8, walked them around to LDJ5, and then employed on additional. This usually means the flooring at the facility was practically crawling with union busters in disguise as personnel.
The LDJ5 arranging committee did extraordinary work in battling for a victory, though they experienced considerably less guide time to ramp up the campaigning in their own facility mainly because they the right way focused for months on the marketing campaign at JFK8. They had to adapt the procedures from JFK8 to a new facility, 1 with very distinctive ailments (shorter shifts, primarily component time employees, and distinctive productiveness trackers), and they had to do this on a extremely condensed timeline. Unfortunately, due to the higher force character of the condition, there have been some missed chances to expand out the arranging committee and activate sturdy supporters in the facility. It’s definitely essential the movement does not grow to be an inner firing squad in the deal with of a decline but instead draws a stability sheet of these skipped alternatives in purchase to improve our forces for the next fight.
The victory at JFK8 was received inside of the facility by way of relentless break area occupations involving employees from all racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds and a concerted effort to disrupt union busting meetings. There had been about 20 workers at JFK8 who could be routinely identified speaking to their coworkers inside of the facility. This is the technique we’ll require as we acquire the fight to services throughout the country.
The critical following stage for the ALU will be to throw all their strength into defending their victory at JFK8 from Amazon’s makes an attempt to overturn it, gearing up to get a solid contract, and spreading the motion nationally. This will indicate mobilizing the hundreds of Amazon employees across the country who’ve achieved out to ALU about arranging their workplace.
After the historic victory at JFK8, ALU properly set out a phone for a national organizing meeting in late June. At this stage of the wrestle, ALU can engage in an vital political function in the movement, defending the priceless part of crystal clear demands, naming a manager like Jeff Bezos as the enemy, emphasizing the value of rank-and-file leadership, and modeling how a balanced union should really be constructed, like for example ALU’s constitutional clause that union officers earn no a lot more than personnel they characterize.
In ALU’s endeavours to steer clear of replicating the blunders of the existing labor leadership, it is fully understandable that there are hesitations about employing team and professionalizing funds. Nevertheless, without a sturdy firm, the key political classes of ALU’s victory can be isolated as larger sized unions like the Teamsters enter the fight towards Amazon with a a lot more regular and considerably less militant solution.
Other unions and the broader working course must be mobilized directly into the battle. Unionized personnel at UPS and the USPS deal with a 3rd of Amazon’s deliveries, and if ALU phone calls a strike to pressure Amazon to the desk, these staff can “refuse to cross the picket lines” in the kind of refusing to produce packages that fuel Bezos’ earnings producing equipment. In addition, wider protests in coordination with placing personnel can gum up the couple of lanes of highway that most of Amazon’s merchandise journey previous. We really should at some stage established our sights on focusing on Amazon’s company headquarters in Seattle.
Socialist Option is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the ALU to defend the victory at JFK8, and do whichever it requires to unfold the motion across the country!
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