I went to Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse on the last day of its union drive. There are details about the working conditions that are striking up close, before you even enter (THREAD)
Full-time workers told me they have 10-hour shifts & just two 30 min breaks. In the hot Alabama sun (it said 68 degrees but I swear it felt 10 degrees hotter) that means many workers I saw only have time to sit in their car, turn the engine/AC on & run up their gas
It could just be because of current events, but the warehouse has a Bessemer police officer stationed at the entrance, another who patrols the parking lot, and a private guard who walks around the lot looking for goofy parking violations. Capitalism & policing go hand in hand
The security officer wrote someone up bc of the way she was parked in her spot. The guard assumed she drove the wrong way (it’s a one way street). But she just pulled into the spot from a parallel street, and she had to debate the write up with the guard
A new worker told me he hadn’t even been told about the vote, but he saw anti-union literature inside the building. I’m paraphrasing, but the basic message was “why join a union when you can get benefits without one.” He would have been interested in joining a union regardless
Who knows how the unionizing efforts will turn out (I was told it will take another week or so for the results), but every worker who spoke to me was either supportive or just hadn’t heard about it and wanted to know more. And these were mostly young, Black workers.
I’m planning on sharing more stories down the road. But keep an eye out for labor struggles that challenge mainstream narratives about who the working class is. Workers overall would be better off for it.
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