BREAKING: More Perfect Union has obtained emails showing that Amazon privately pressured USPS to install an illegal ballot dropbox during the union election in Bessemer, AL.
The emails directly contradict public statements by USPS about the box's origins.
There's more.
The emails were obtained through a FOIA request by @RWDSU.
Many of the exchanges have been almost entirely redacted & any mentions of Amazon officials has been removed.
But here are some key findings that we have been able to glean from the FOIA.
First, we learn that beginning Jan 8—one month before the union vote begins—Amazon repeatedly calls USPS’s “strategic account manager” to say they want to install their own box.
USPS team deliberates Amazon's request and says a “private box may not be utilized.”
USPS then decides to install one for them.
“Amazon HQ would like to be kept in the loop,” a USPS official informs the entire national and local team.
We don’t know for sure, but in a series of redacted emails, it appears that for over the next week, Amazon and USPS haggle over the acquisition of a box, what kind of box can be installed, and how quickly it can be done.
On Feb 3rd, a USPS official sends an email stating that it is dedicating time and effort to physically altering a collection box that would meet Amazon’s needs.
USPS says it is hollowing out a box that would allow for bulk mail ballot collection.
Amazon demands USPS install the box by Feb 7, one day before the union vote was to begin.
USPS says it is working with Amazon to place that box in a convenient location on the Bessemer campus.
As we documented with @GrimKim, Amazon had the ballot dropbox installed in violation of explicit guidance from the federal government.
The box is installed the evening of Feb 9th, late at night, under cover of darkness.
The mailbox was critical for Amazon’s strategy because it wanted to pressure employees to bring ballots to work that they'd received at home in the mail.
By doing this, they could then pressure and monitor employees to submit “no” votes.
BREAKING: Apple Store workers in Maryland have made history, securing the first-ever tentative union contract at the world's most valuable company. Under the agreement, the workers will win 10% raises, scheduling improvements, limits on contracted workers, and more.
These workers launched their organizing drive well over two years ago with @MachinistsUnion and were met with relentless union-busting by Apple, which publicly claims to maintain the "highest standards of labor conduct."
@MachinistsUnion After they made history and won the company's first union, the NLRB charged that Apple illegally withheld benefits from these Maryland workers to discourage Apple Store workers from organizing. theverge.com/2023/11/22/239…
NEW: Uber Eats, Grubhub, and Seamless want you to blame higher prices on minimum wage laws.
It’s a lie.
The truth is they gobbled up the entire food delivery industry, and now they’re charging you higher prices because you have no other choice.
We found receipts for an identical delivery order made at a Chinese restaurant in 2019 and 2024.
In 2019, the order cost $19.47 — or $26 adjusted for inflation.
Today that order costs $36.
It’s part of what @doctorow calls “enshittification” — when corporations take over things that are working perfectly fine, turn them into profit machines, and degrade the quality for the rest of us.
Donald Trump and JD Vance just raised $2 million at a fundraiser hosted by coal executive Joe Craft and fracking billionaire Harold Hamm.
It was the single largest political fundraiser in Oklahoma history.
This is Trump's strategy, fundraisers by and for the super rich. 🧵
2) Joe Craft is the CEO of Alliance Resource Partners, a coal executive who has overseen hundreds of labor violations at his company and has an intimate relationship with Trump, with his wife being appointed U.N. Ambassador during Trump’s presidency. eenews.net/articles/coal-…
3) Tomorrow, a Trump fundraiser in Nashville will take place next to the Bitcoin Conference. If you donate $844,600 to the Trump 47 Committee, you get to sit at a table with Trump. If you pay $60,000, you get a photo.
Multiple large unions have now endorsed Kamala Harris, while also expressing concern that her campaign is eying Senator Mark Kelly for VP.
His refusal to support the PRO act, a core goal of the labor movement that would make union organizing easier, is raising alarm.
/1
2) As John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union and an ally of President Joe Biden, told ABC News, “Why would the Democrats even consider a senator for the vice presidency if the senator doesn't support the PRO Act?” abcnews.go.com/Politics/labor…
3) Richard Bensinger, the former organizing director at the AFL-CIO, the largest labor organization in the U.S., recently posted the following:
An Olympics’ opening ceremony rehearsal "did not go as planned" after dancers raised their fists to protest unequal treatment instead of dancing.
The dancers have now filed a strike notice, and they’re not the only Paris workers on the verge of striking.
Thread.
A union representing workers at Paris’ two major airports has filed a strike motion for July 26, the date of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games.
The Force Ouvrière (FO) union represents 11.5% of workers at the Orly and Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airports. /2
The union has filed a motion for a one day strike, but that day is the entire opening day of the Paris Olympics.
These vital workers want increased bonus pay for working through the turbulent beginning of the Olympics. /3 connexionfrance.com/news/paris-air…
It’s time to be clear on what Trump, Vance, and the GOP really think about working class people.
A thread.
2) When Trump was president, he oversaw a viciously anti-labor administration which stacked the NLRB with corporate lawyers, damaged collective bargaining rights for federal employees, and defended right-to-work laws. thehill.com/regulation/lab…
3) And in the midst of a pandemic, Trump orchestrated the loosening of worker safety regulations, making it easier for bosses to ignore the law. rollcall.com/2020/05/21/afl…