Photo Credit: Juan Miguel Martinez
A group of Milwaukee area and statewide labor and community organizations will hold a solidarity picket to support Amazon workers, 10 a.m. Saturday, March 20, 2021 at 2305 N Prospect Avenue (Whole Foods).
The picket is an effort to show solidarity with Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, where on Feb.8, approximately 6,000 warehouse workers began voting by mail on whether to be represented by the Retail Wholesale Department Store Workers Union (RWDSU). The voting period ends on March 29.
The working conditions at Amazon warehouses, along with Amazon’s refusal to adopt measures that protect workers from COVID-19, have pushed Amazon and Whole Foods workers everywhere to step up organizing to fight back.
March 20 is an international day of solidarity with Amazon workers in Bessemer as well as the U.N.’s International Day Against Racism. The predominantly Black workers in Bessemer are on the cusp of launching a history-changing effort at one of the biggest and most powerful transnational corporations in the world.
In addition, these workers are standing up to the racist, anti-union laws that suppress labor across the South and now exist in Wisconsin such as right-to-work (for less) and Act 10. Solidarity from every corner of the labor and progressive movements is happening to show the workers in Bessemer that they are not alone, that all eyes are on the historic struggle that they are leading. This is especially needed as Amazon continues to ramp up their union-busting tactics. The protest is sponsored by the Unemployed Council of Milwaukee, Collectivo Union and Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement.
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The groups are looking to promote the importance of unions in the workplace. The last few months have been a whirlwind for service workers in Milwaukee in terms of unionizing, notably by restaurant workers. “True power comes from lending our voice to collective bargaining,” organizer says.
Masks are mandatory and social distancing will be practiced at the protest.
For full listing of Amazon worker solidarity events,visit Southernworker.org/amazon
