Portside

As destiny would have it, just days after Amazon used illegal tactics to derail a drive by warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama to unionize, journalists in northern New Jersey who work for Gannett are voting on whether or not to form a union.

The annual decline in the number of union members actually slowed after the a right-to-work law in Michigan took effect in 2013. And membership grew to 604,000 in 2020 from 589,000 in 2019. 

The pandemic isn’t the whole story. Many working-class Asian American women have faced mistreatment throughout their working lives over their English language ability, class, gender, race, and immigration status.

Whether or not the union’s challenge in Bessemer fails, Amazon will face labor battles elsewhere.

The union’s loss in Bessemer shows the urgent need for both labor law reform and organizing at a mass scale.

Legislation that expands collective bargaining by enabling workers to choose union representation and strengthens union rights is critically important to restoring wage growth and wage equality.

The For the People Act and the Protecting the Right to Organize Act are essential to ensuring working people are heard in legislative chambers and corporate boardrooms. The fate of these bills hinges on an anti-democratic Senate rule: the filibuster.

Reporters quickly proved "the peeing in bottles thing" is real and that Amazon is well aware this happens, and will fire drivers who are caught peeing in public.

The Amazon organizing drive has drawn attention to just how much the deck is stacked against workers and unions. The Pro Act would provide a much-needed update to labor law after decades of rising inequality and an erosion of collective bargaining.

Informal workers around the world lost about 75% of earnings in the first few months of the pandemic, but were largely excluded from relief programs. But they are organizing and even winning some demands.