A pretty big deal for the ongoing struggle for better working conditions at Amazon. Happening in the heart of anti union New South.
A great article here shows the history of organizing in Alabama is deeper than you might think. As the Amazon campaign takes off in Alabama, it turns out there is a real history of radical and usually minority-based unionism in that state. In fact, Alabama probably has a longer history of union activism than any other southern state, in part because of a sizable minority population and in part because of the steel industry’s role in industrializing the state.
Whatever its outcome, the Amazon unionization drive in Bessemer is part of this history, and its organizers are working in the tradition of what the historian Robert Korstad called the “civil rights unionism” of Black workers combining “class consciousness with race solidarity.” If it is these workers who, among so many others, stand a real chance of unionizing Amazon, then you could say that they owe it, in part, to their heritage.
As for all of us outside Alabama? We should remember that the political character of the South is more than its shading on an Electoral College map; that the entire region is home to a rich history of resistance against the twin forces of race hierarchy and class exploitation; and that a more just and equitable future may well depend on how much we take those histories to heart and build on them from there.
The Union vote got a boost from the President yesterday.
President Biden gave Amazon warehouse staff in Alabama fighting to join a union their biggest support yet, tweeting a video Sunday night saying workers should be able to make their decision in the election without pressure from the company.
More than 5,800 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., are in the middle of a seven-week voting period to determine whether they want the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union to represent them. Although Biden didn’t name Amazon in the video, he made it clear that he supports the union drive.
“Today and over the next few days and weeks, workers in Alabama, and all across America, are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace,” Biden said.
And he exhorted employers to refrain from taking any sort of steps that might pressure workers from supporting a union.
“There should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda,” Biden said.
Biden’s move to weigh in strongly supporting workers’ rights to organize in the midst of such a high-profile campaign was a major break with historical precedent and another sign of his commitment to a campaign promise to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”
This is a really big deal. The first time in US history that a sitting president has supported an active union drive. 2020 was also the first time multiple presidential candidates stood with active picket linbes.