Amazon, one of America’s most profitable and fastest-growing corporations, headed by
the richest man in the world, is emblematic of the long-term decline of America’s middle
class and levels of economic inequality America has not seen since the late nineteenth century’s
Gilded Age.
Amazon warehouse workers sustained double the rate of injury incidents than workers
in non-Amazon warehouses.
Workers who spoke out about unsafe conditions were fired.
Amazon boasts of paying its workers at least $15 an hour. Well, that comes to about $30,000 a
year, hardly sufficient for a family to get by on. $15 an hour is the floor, not the ceiling,
of what working people deserve — and it’s not nearly enough to brag about.
Lousy pay and unsafe working conditions across the American economy have strained the social
fabric of the nation — fueling anger and frustration, a rising tide of drug overdoses
and deaths of despair, even tempting some working-class people to embrace Donald Trump's
messages of fear, hate, and division.
Amazon and other architects of inequality don’t just wield enormous economic power.
They now wield immense political power, allowing them to get away with egregious labor law violations.
The most recent example: when nearly 6,000 predominantly Black workers dared
to unionize their Bessemer, Alabama warehouse, Amazon employed a “shock and
awe” union-busting campaign against them.
It’s an alarming omen of the future.
In Amazon warehouses like Bessemer, workers are treated like robots. Algorithms relentlessly
impose dangerous production quotas. They get two 30-minute breaks each ten-hour day.
Every movement is monitored.
Amazon delivery drivers even report having to urinate into bottles because of delivery
timing pressures.
Even though public support for unions is as high as it’s been in 50 years, Bessemer
workers’ organizing efforts were thwarted by a behemoth whose market capitalization
exceeds Australia’s GDP.
The National Labor Relations Act makes it illegal for employers to fire workers for
trying to organize a union. But the penalties are so laughably small (rehiring the worker
and providing back pay) that employers like Amazon routinely do it anyway.
Amazon may be the future of the American economy, but if that future is to have room for the
kind of prosperous working families we saw fifty years ago, we need stronger unions.
Research shows high union membership boosts middle class incomes and reduces inequality.
Rebuilding worker power is critical to restoring broad-based prosperity.
In March, the House of Representatives passed legislation designed to level the playing
field, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. It needs three more Democratic co-sponsors
in the Senate to have a fighting chance of getting to Joe Biden’s desk.
The PRO Act is the toughest labor law reform in a generation. It would end many of the
practices Amazon used to defeat the union effort in Bessemer, and impose real penalties
on companies and corporations who violate the National Labor Relations Act.
Now, the PRO Act alone won’t end economic inequality or return prosperity and opportunity
to America’s working families. But its passage would certainly help.
Crucially, it would send a clear signal that ours is truly a government “of the people.”
A government that serves over one million people who work for Amazon, not an individual
multibillionaire. A government that protects unions, not corporate profits. A government
that works for the vast majority of Americans who are working harder than ever today and
getting nowhere in America’s Second Gilded Age.
Passing the PRO Act is a crucial first step.
Let’s make it happen.