Earlier this week, I returned to my downloaded folder of podcasts.
In there, I found an episode I downloaded in 2021 from Al Jazeera English Podcasts network for The Take.
It’s titled, “How Amazon’s first union got it done”.
It’s all about organizing and unionizing to get us better days at our places of work!
Photo credit: Al Jazeera
Going after Amazon, the second-largest employer in the US, at the time,
The story of Christopher Smalls, Jordan Flowers, Gerald Bryson, and Derrick Palmer coming together to demand for what’s truly theirs is one to behold.
It speaks of being in a life-or-death situation, ending up victorious with all you’ve got against someone considered untouchable!
Photo credit: The New York Times
Their organizing formed what is now called the “Amazon Labour Union”.
The Amazon Labor Union was founded on April 20, 2021, by a labor-activist group founded by Chris Smalls called The Congress of Essential Workers (TCOEW).
Smalls, along with Derrick Palmer, had organized a walkout at the JFK8 facility to protest Amazon’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had led to the firing of Smalls.
Smalls’ termination was widely criticized by government officials, and prompted Smalls to form TCOEW and lead a number of strike actions.
Photo credit: CNN
If you happen to have a problem with capitalism like I do,
You know that capitalists like Bezos or Musk or any other billionaire out there WILL steal from you, gaslight you and forcefully shut you up into “accepting things as they are”, not as they could be!
Photo credit: ITF Seafarers
Doing the common outrageous things like forcing their employees to urinate in bottles, denying you personal protective equipment at work, paying the lowest wages they possibly can, paying-off lawyers to fight you….
Until you decide to push back against them and that maltreatment!
Photo credit: China Daily
Getting better work standards for you will involve you getting organized like the way those 4 youngsters did.
Silently organizing to unionise will do it best (it will give them bosses the shock Mr. Jeff Bezos got, when he was told of the entire plot Chris and Derrick had created)!
Every person offering their labour should be welcome, I am thinking!
Photo credit: World Bank Blogs
Most of all, don’t stop pushing for better from those guys!
To unionise is to get better for all.
Those guys will definitely fight back but never give up!
All that money that they have is your money actually!
Photo credit: Outlook Money
The sooner you organize yourselves for it, the better we all will be as a union!
Keep organizing to unionise.
Everything will get better from there!
I am rooting for you!