The historic Amazon Union vote
count begins today.
That means that the voting
on whether or not to join the union
has already ended.
And so now the tallying process
will begin.
And this is a really big deal guys
because there are 8,000 warehouse
workers in Bessemer, Alabama.
This is the largest unionizing
effort for Amazon workers.
The last time that we heard about
workers and Amazon trying to
unionize was in 2014.
And it was just a small group of
maintenance and engineer workers
who were trying to do it and they
unfortunately voted against it.
In this case it would pack a punch
and it certainly did get
a lot of national attention.
Now on Tuesday,
the Federal Labor authorities will
begin tallying the votes.
A process that could take a few
days regardless of the outcome
Amazon or the union are expected to
pursue legal challenges.
Now, as that happens,
it will take place internally and
that's when there might be some
disputes about whether or
not certain ballots should count.
But that will not be open to
the public.
Following that part of
the tallying, there will be
the ability to live stream they're
going to live stream this and
the public can actually watch as
they tally the votes anonymously.
To see whether or
not they were able to get enough
votes to get a union for
these workers in Bessemer.
The retail wholesale and
department store union,
which is looking to represent
Amazon workers in Bessemer.
Has called this union push, quote
the most important labor struggle
in more than half a century.
The process was
kicked off in November when about
half of the workers at the Bessemer
warehouse had signed cards to
petition for the election.
And one of the things that
certainly did help to galvanise
the workers, there,
was the national attention that it
received from people like, I'm
going to keep it real Joe Biden.
Who put out a video supporting this
effort, and just this past weekend,
Senator Bernie Sanders also
travelled to Bessemer to help
support the efforts there.
Let's take a quick look
at that video and
then I'll get your thoughts Jake.
>> The reason that Amazon is
putting so much energy to try to
defeat you is they know that if you
succeed here, it will spread all
over this country.
And I just had a few minutes
to chat with some of
you about the heat.
>> I get messages on my computer
saying do not touch the fans,
do not turn the fan on.
>> We do have fans,
they're just not using it.
>> The fact that when you get
a 30 minute break, it takes you 10
minutes to get to the break station
and 10 minutes back.
>> They explained to me they're
working in this facility
is like a 10 hour workout.
>> The way that we work is meant to
mentally break you down.
>> The man who's worth $450
billion, who will not provide air
conditioning, who penalizes people
for being a minute late.
>> If your one minute late,
i takes a whole hour of paid time.
You're saying that you lose your
whole hour if you're
five minutes late, one minute late.
>> All the Amazons around
the world, do the same thing.
>> Think about a woman having a
heart attack and falling out behind
you because she's so hot and tired.
>> There's this older woman who
stands next to me,
one night she passed out.
>> She passed out?
>> Yeah, she had a heart attack.
>> It's time for us to
to start kicking this thing and
stand together and fight.
>> So they're standing together
and fighting.
Unfortunately, we won't know today
whether or not they're going to
join this union, whether or
not they have enough votes.
But we should find out in the next
few days and we'll share those
updates with you as we learn them.
Okay, first I want to give credit
to some people.
That was Killer Mike,
you saw there, he's a rapper,
what's he doing there?
He's goes there because he cares,
that guy is awesome.
But it's my job to correct him on
the facts, because we do news.
Bezos is not worth $150 billion,
he's worth $180 billion and
that's after the divorce.
Okay, so you don't have time to
give your workers more than a five
minute bathroom break.
They say it takes about five
minutes to get to the bathroom in
that giant warehouse.
I mean they timing your bathroom
breaks man.
Okay, so Bernie has been fighting
on this word of credit,
you push Amazon and get the $15
minimum wage in the first place.
Now they're bragging about it like
he didn't do it.
He's down there fighting,
I'll give Biden credit too, because
that's definitely not going to make
the Chamber of Commerce happy.
And usually corporate Democrats
never ever want to displease
the Chamber of Commerce.
I know that unions give a ton
of money to Democrats as well, so
that's obviously part of this
equation.
But credit where credit is due, I
don't care where you got the money
for, just good, good, okay?
Now, again I gotta be honest with
you guys, this is the first time
they're trying to unionize anything
related with amazon since 2014.
And before that it was 2000, I
don't know what amazon's situation
was in 2000, I don't know how small
or big or midsize they were, right?
And so that one failed because
there was the.com bust etc so
no it is what it is that's okay.
But no one tried to unionize
Amazon between 2000 and 2014, and
between 2014 and 2020?
Nobody tried that? Do you know that
unions go and sometimes try to
unionize progressive campaigns?
They don't usually do it to
corporate Democrats,
to load up more costs on
progressive candidates.
But they don't have time to
unionize Amazon in 20 years, it's
unbelievable to me, unbelievable.
So I'm glad that they finally
figure it out, yeah, that's
the largest company in the world.
And the owner has $180 billion and
is squeezing workers to no end.
And maybe we should find a giant
corporation, congratulations for
figuring it out.
I hope they win,
I hope those folks get real rights.
And that's where union is awesome
if you do it right, because those
folks need help down there.
And Bernie's right,
if they win down there that could
happen all across the country.
It's not just that it
would embolden the workers.
It might actually embolden unions
to take on giant corporations
instead of tiny ones.
Well, the thing with Amazon is,
and look, I don't know about
every effort to unionize at Amazon.
I know that the last effort was in
2014 but to be clear,
Amazon is vicious in the tactics it
uses to prevent its workers from
unionizing.
Intimidation, one of the more
recent tactics that we learned
about was that they were hiring off
duty cops in Bessemer, Alabama.
To intimidate their workers there
there was a video detailing it,
they also had changed the stop
lights at intersection.
So the red light would be much
shorter that way, the organizers
would have less time to be able
to actually talk to the workers.
They're not able to organise on
the Amazon factory property, right?
So they have to do it outside.
And so they were doing this at
intersections when people
were stopped at red lights and
Amazon found a way to stop
that from happening.
So they're pretty vicious and
Alabama is a right-to-work state.
One of the things that they're
doing is they're forcing all
of their factory workers to attend
these mandatory anti-union
meetings.
Where they're propagandized about
all of the alleged harm that could
happen as a result of the union
representing them.
So I'm sure there have been more
efforts than we know about.
But Amazon has been able to
basically squash those efforts
through these types of tactics.
It just hasn't really worked out
for them in Bessemer.
>> I'm going to say
one more cynical thing.
So everybody keeps saying if we can
happen in a deep red state right to
work state like and
that's a misnomer.
It's basically anti labor statutes
like they have in Alabama.
It could happen anywhere, so
why isn't it happening everywhere?
Why isn't there a union drive in
every Amazon warehouse?
I still don't get it,
I literally don't get it.
I don't know what
the unions are doing.
There's these giant,
giant corporations that are abusing
their workers to no end.
Every decade or so
we get hey go golly gee,
let's hope it works in Alabama.
Even if it doesn't work in Alabama,
you should do it in other places
because they're not allowed to go
to the bathroom in Ohio either or
in all the other states.
>> Well, by the way, look,
this is why it's so
important Jake because this did
galvanize warehouse workers and
Amazon workers across the country.
And that's exactly what Amazon
wanted to prevent from happening.
And so now this Retail Workers
Union is being contacted by Amazon
workers across the country,
we're talking about Iowa,
Southern California.
I don't have the list in front of
me right now,
but there are all sorts of
red states included there as well.
So the national attention to this
has been important, and
I'm glad that there are pretty high
profile members of Congress and
the President.
I mean, that's not a small thing,
Biden speaking out in
favor of this.
It did help to galvanize it and
more importantly, it helped not to
just galvanize the Bessemer,
Alabama warehouse workers, but
workers across the country.
So hopefully this trend continues
and they can't keep the genie in
the bottle like that's what
Amazon's been trying to do and
they're failing, luckily.
>> Yeah, man, by the way,
the other thing about labor is if
they can't give the PRO Act Why did
you pay the all
those Democrats all that money.
If they're never going to deliver
anything for you, and
you can't get the $15 minimum wage.
What are you guys up to?
>> What's the other option? >> The
option is to kick the Democrats
asses, the corporate Democrats,
with their best friends with.
And actually hold them accountable
and say hey if you don't pass
the Pro Act or $15 minimum wage.
We're never going to give
you another dollar, okay?
That's hardball and instead they
go attack random people for
no reason because they feel like,
we could win that fight.
No, you should win the big fights
so you can get the actual labor in
this country and the union effort
to be big, bold and strong.
So let's see if you got any fight
in you, if they don't pass
the PRO Act or $15 minimum wage.
Almost every union leader in
the country should be fired.