Organizing Amazon Is Do-or-Die for the Labor Movement - Jacobin
Failing to unionize Amazon would hasten the US labor movement’s decline. But that doesn’t have to happen. We have a fleeting opportunity to organize Amazon — if labor and the Left make it an urgent priority.
In the blink of an eye, Amazon has become the second-largest employer in the United States and one of the biggest companies in the world. While Wall Street has fawned over the rise of the logistics giant, its hundreds of thousands of warehouse and delivery workers have labored for low wages under brutal conditions. From twelve-hour “megacycle” night shifts to speedups and high injury rates, Amazon has sacrificed its workers at every turn to keep costs low and profits high, making the job so rough that the workforce turns over 150 percent every year.
Socialists and labor movement activists should support Amazon worker organizing on the basis of these cruel and unjust working conditions alone. But we should also focus on Amazon for another, equally important reason: organizing a militant rank-and-file-led union at Amazon may be the strategic key to revitalizing the labor movement, while failing to do so could dramatically accelerate the movement’s decline. Fortunately, efforts are underway to develop militant, rank-and-file-led unionism at Amazon that left activists can and should support.
Failing to unionize Amazon would hasten the US labor movement’s decline. But that doesn’t have to happen. We have a fleeting opportunity to organize Amazon — if labor and the Left make it an urgent priority.
In the blink of an eye, Amazon has become the second-largest employer in the United States and one of the biggest companies in the world. While Wall Street has fawned over the rise of the logistics giant, its hundreds of thousands of warehouse and delivery workers have labored for low wages under brutal conditions. From twelve-hour “megacycle” night shifts to speedups and high injury rates, Amazon has sacrificed its workers at every turn to keep costs low and profits high, making the job so rough that the workforce turns over 150 percent every year.
Socialists and labor movement activists should support Amazon worker organizing on the basis of these cruel and unjust working conditions alone. But we should also focus on Amazon for another, equally important reason: organizing a militant rank-and-file-led union at Amazon may be the strategic key to revitalizing the labor movement, while failing to do so could dramatically accelerate the movement’s decline. Fortunately, efforts are underway to develop militant, rank-and-file-led unionism at Amazon that left activists can and should support.
