Amazon workers in North Carolina vote against joining union : unions

[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 week ago (1 children)

https://jacobin.com/2025/02/amazon-union-north-carolina-racism/

Today 4,000 Amazon workers at a North Carolina warehouse will finish voting on a union. Employees say the company “mobilized an army” ahead of the election, siccing local police on organizers and trying to pit black and Hispanic workers against each other.

“Under the National Labor Relations Act, I should have been allowed to flyer on the premises,” said Orin Starn, who had worked at Amazon for six months. “But the police, who in the small town of Garner where Amazon is the biggest employer act as a kind of private security force, didn’t care and just took us off to jail.”

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 week ago (3 children)

We are a healthy democracy. We love our country. God bless Amazon, God bless Citi Group, God bless Carls Jr.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Welcome to Costco, I love you.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is why the phrase "fascism is imperialism turned inward" is so real. Using psyops and state violence to suppress dissent is the the same strategy used in the global south to overthrow and depose any mass labor movements or socialist leaning political formations.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

There's also literally Mussolini saying fascism is the merger of corporation and state.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Bootlicker caving is a sad reality of peasant condition.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Anybody who thinks they are immune to propaganda should look at the outcome of these votes and remind themselves that It's actually pretty easy to convince you to vote against your own best interest.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 week ago (1 children)

According to the other article posted in another response, it's as easy as sending an army of policemen to beat up the workers because the company owns the city.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I don't see how this worked... Generally that's an indicator you are doing the right thing.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 week ago

I expect nothing from my state but still end up disappointed

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well yeah they don't want to lose their jobs like everyone in the Quebec warehouse. If Canada doesn't hold Amazon liable for union busting bs, I would not expect the US to be any better

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I believe Quebec is suing them and the government has cancelled and banned the used of all Amazon services

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

True but in normies brain the retaliation was swift but the state's response is limp dick. Executives making these decisions need to be criminally prosecuted and imprisoned, that's how you send a message to a corporate parasite. Otherwise they have no fear of anything and will commit crime as needed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't agree with shooting yourself in the foot to immediately solve a problem

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

And that's why peasants always lose lol

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sooner or later they're gonna run out of feet to shoot themselves in

[–] corsicanguppy 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That's already a serious problem for Amazon, as reported in 2022.

Is Amazon about to run out of workers? According to a leaked internal memo, the retail logistics company fears so. “If we continue business as usual, Amazon will deplete the available labor supply in the US network by 2024,” the research, first reported by Recode, stated.

https://archive.ph/Z9a9D

The fear - 3 years ago - was that the incredibly high turnover rate in its warehouses as they processed eager starving candidates into broken, bitter, exhausted hulks to kick out the loading bay would soon deplete the available labour pool in areas around its warehouses. They would simply have no one willing to work for them even if it meant starving.

2024 has come and gone, and aside from being a simpler pre-Trump2 time, Amazon didn't run out of staff. But a near miss is maybe just a delayed eventuality, and their labour practices haven't improved in a noticeable way if at all.

So the memo and its dire warning still hold.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I know a call centre that contracts its people out had to leave my area because it underestimated how connected people here are and quickly ran out of willing slaves. The building is a parking lot now.

This is a real threat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It’s also why Bucc-ee’s pays like $25/hour for retail work. The working conditions are so grueling that the only way to retain workers (and avoid running out of available workers in the area) is to pay them decently.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Wife got hired there. Once I heard about conditions, I told her to fuck them off. If nothing else, she would eventually get fired over being late as there's no way to drive that far and 100% be on time.

I'll never spend a dime there again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Weren't they looking into roboticizing their warehouses so they would only need truck loaders/unloaders and packers? Or did that fizzle out?

If they still have that option, then they still have a lot of runway to burn out potential workers before they run out, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

This has "votes for 6-day, 8-hour work weeks while already under a fixed $35,000 annual salary" energy.

[–] Sunshine 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Piss Bottles Are The Standard Feature Of The Warehouse Now.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess it will replace the fruit basket on the benefits list for job offers any time soon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

fruit basket

The single allotted banana?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago

🤦‍♂️