Tech Won't Save Us - What’s Next for Amazon Workers? w/ Kim Kelly

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Paris Marx is joined by Kim Kelly to discuss what it was like on the ground in Bessemer as workers tried to form a union at Amazon, the mood after the results came in, and where the organizing effort against Amazon goes from here.Kim Kelly is a freelance labor reporter who has written for Teen Vogue, The Baffler, Vox, and many others. She is also writing a book for One Signal Publishers called “Fight Like Hell” that will come out in 2022. Follow Kim on Twitter as @GrimKim.🎉 In April 2021, Tech Won’t Save Us celebrates its first birthday. If we get 30 new supporters at $5+ per month, we’ll start a weekly newsletter in addition to the weekly podcast to provide a new way for people to access critical perspectives on technology. If you like the show, become a supporter and help us reach our goal!Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Kim wrote about the workers and organizers behind the Bessemer campaign, and how faith was an important motivating factor. She also reported on it for More Perfect Union.Alex Press outlined the history of civil rights unionism in the US South.Caroline O’Donovan explained how Amazon workers are organizing beyond Bessemer, and why some don’t plan to seek NLRB recognition.Luis Feliz Leon wrote about the growing international movement to challenge Amazon.The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union challenged the result of the Bessemer union vote over Amazon’s union busting tactics.The New York Times spoke to some workers who voted “no” for the union.Amazon promotes its $15 minimum wage, but it actually pushes down wages in the warehousing sector.The PRO Act is a major change to US labor legislation that would make it easier to unionize.Support the show

Michael Foster, better known as Big Mike, he said a line in one of the interviews I ended up doing that was like, they treat us like robots, but even robots break down sometimes. And that just hit me right in the heart. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks. And I have to say, I've really been blown away by the support that listeners have shown to the show and to me this month. It's really been incredible to see that at the first year anniversary of the show, how many people are enjoying it, learning from it, and to such a degree that they are willing to support the work that I put into this every week so I can expand it with a new website,

with transcripts, and with a weekly newsletter starting next month. At the beginning of the month, I set a goal to get 30 new supporters at $5 or more a month by the end of April, and we have just blown so far beyond that goal. It's so fantastic. So far this month, the show has picked up 56 new supporters. And that doesn't include the people who increased their support this month as well. There are now more than 180 people supporting the podcast on Patreon. That is just so incredible. Some of the new supporters this week that I'd like to thank are Derek Haffer, Gabe in St. Louis, Moritz from Cologne, Jérôme Yadarak, and Omri Hellerman. Thanks to those supporters. Thanks to all the people who decided to support the show this month. And thanks to the people who have

been supporting even longer than that as well. As I said, this is the final week of this birthday month. So I would just say that if you are enjoying the show, if you are learning from it, if you want to help me grow the show in the future with these projects I mentioned and other things that I have planned as well, please consider going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and becoming a supporter. To celebrate the first year anniversary of the show, next week, wrote about the Californian ideology in the 1990s, which really outlined the worldview of tech. And that was one of these concepts that was really important to me as I was kind of developing my critical perspective on technology and the tech industry. So I'm really excited to chat with Richard next week. And I will also have more announcements next week about the guests that are coming in May that I'm also really excited about. So stay tuned for that. But that's next week. This week,

my guest is Kim Kelly. Kim is a freelance labor reporter who has written for Teen Vogue, The Baffler, Vox, and many other publications. She's also writing a new book called Fight Like Hell for One Signal Publishers that will come out in 2022. Unfortunately, you can't pre-order it yet, but I would just say keep your eyes open because I know that this is going to be a book you're going to want to read. In this episode, we talk about the recent unionization campaign by Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama. Kim got to go down to Bessemer three times to report on the campaign, what was going on there, and to get to know the workers and the organizers who were really trying to take on one of the most

powerful companies in the world. And in the process, not just fighting for their rights and the rights of their co-workers, but also educating so many more people around the United States and the world about what Amazon is really like and how it treats its workers in this really dehumanizing way. Obviously, at this point, we know that those workers were unfortunately unsuccessful in their campaign, at least so far. You know, maybe in the future they will succeed in forming a union. But I don't think that means that we should dismiss this campaign out of hand. I think it still served such an important role to inspire people and to show other workers that they can take on their bosses as well. And while yes, it will be a difficult fight and you might not win, there is a chance that you

will prevail and then have additional power to push back against your authoritarian employer and improve your working conditions. So I won't go on any longer. I'll just say that I had a fantastic time chatting with Kim. I've been reading Kim's work for a long time, and I think you're really going to like this conversation. So as always, if you liked it, please consider leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it on social media or with any friends or colleagues who you think would enjoy it. And if you want to support the work that I put into making this show every week, to ensuring it's available to anyone who wants to listen to it and is not behind a paywall, please consider going to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and becoming a supporter.

Thanks so much and enjoy this week's conversation. Kim, welcome to tech won't save us. Hello, hello. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to chat with you. Obviously, you know, the past few months, we've all been kind of paying attention to this story of the union drive in Alabama by Amazon workers who were trying to form the first union at an Amazon workplace in the United States in its entire history. There have been a couple attempts in the past, but they unfortunately failed. And this was kind of one that received a lot of attention, especially after a year of the pandemic and kind of the reporting on how Amazon has not been taking the measures that it should have to keep its workers safe during that time. So I wanted to start by asking

you, you are obviously down in Bessemer, Alabama, while this was going on a few times, obviously not throughout the whole thing. But what was it like to go down there and to see what was happening on the ground? Well, I first went down in, I think, like the first week of February, right when the ballots were about to be heading out. And I didn't quite know what to expect. Because, I mean, it was strange enough to be leaving my house and my neighborhood for the first time in a long time, let alone going all the way down to Birmingham to Bessemer and kind of, you know, for lack of a less annoying word, parachuting into the middle of this campaign. And that was, I think I was probably one of the first reporters down there. And I was really

grateful to the organizers and the workers for taking the time to actually talk to me because they hadn't been really doing a lot of press up until that point. And even then you kind of had to get to know people a little bit, gain their trust,. And even then, you kind of had to get to know people a little bit, gain their trust, be like, here, this is what I'm doing. This is where I'm coming from. Because it was a very sensitive campaign. It was a huge campaign. You're dealing with Amazon. You don't necessarily want to spill your guts to just anybody. So it was the experience of just getting to know people and hearing about what was happening and hearing from workers directly about what they were dealing with. We all know well i think most people at this point know

that working at amazon isn't exactly a picnic but seeing like these just sweet kind middle-aged people talking about how they're not allowed to just go to the bathroom for more than a couple minutes and the toll that it has taken physically on their bodies and mentally and emotionally the isolation the stress of being constantly under surveillance, of being beholden to an algorithm, of just the way that they're, you know, it came up fairly often. It became something of a tagline that, you know, we're not robots. And there's one of the organizers, Michael Foster, better known as Big Mike, he said a line in one of the interviews I ended up doing for a video that was like, they treat us like robots, but even robots break down sometimes. And that just hit me right in the heart. It's like, it is easy to order something from Amazon and have a package

magically appear and not really think about it, to go about your day, especially if you're someone who depends on Amazon for your daily necessities for whatever reason. But just hearing firsthand, face-to-face, looking into people's eyes as they're talking about what they went through and why they wanted a union, why they're determined to fight for it, it was really transformative. And I feel really lucky that I was able to be there. It was intense. It was probably my longest reporting trip ever because I went down there three times in total. But every time I feel like I learned more and I saw more of the story and I started to care more. Like I'm really invested. I know you're supposed to be objective or whatever as a journalist, which is fake.

But I felt by the end of it, I was like, wow, I really want my friends to win. Like I really want them to win. But yeah, all in all, it was really an incredible experience. And I think it was really impactful in terms of just, you know, that they got so close. And it got so much attention, as you're saying, it was like the big, it was definitely the biggest labor store in the country for months. And it was one of the biggest story stories across the board for quite a while. And I think that's going to continue to have a measurable impact on organizing around Amazon and in tech and in general, because, you know, this this handful, well, a big handful of workers in Bessemer, Alabama took on, you know, took on Jeff Bezos, and they got pretty close. So it's really just waiting to see what happens next, right? Absolutely. And I can only imagine how impactful it was to be there on the ground, like even watching from afar. I think it was really impactful to learn about what was happening there, to see the stories of these

workers. And I think it also served a really important function of educating a lot of people who might not have paid attention to Amazon in the past about what actually goes on in these warehouses and how these workers are treated. And so I wonder, you know, you were down there, you were talking to workers, you were getting to know them, workers and organizers. What was the mood among the workers and organizers as they were kind of carrying out this campaign? And you mentioned some of them there, but what were some of the issues that the workers were facing that were driving them to want to form a union? The mood the entire time from, and I've had a lot of conversations

and spent a lot of time and had a lot of meals with organizers and workers there. And it was always just so hopeful. It came down to this very core belief that good would triumph over evil. And they weren't even necessarily saying, oh, Amazon is evil.

It's just that vibe of like, oh, well, we need to do good. We need to do better by our coworkers. We need to help people. We need to make a change because this shit ain't working. It doesn't need to be like this. We should be able to thrive instead of merely surviving. One of the things that really seemed to piss people off was Amazon's messaging around its pay and its benefits where they're saying, oh, well, it's like 15 bucks an hour. You get some health insurance. What do you have

to complain about? We're doing great. You're having a great time. And they're like, 15 bucks an hour. Like you get some health insurance. Like, what do you have to complain about? We're doing great. You're having a great time. And they're like, you know, 15 bucks an hour doesn't really go that far, even in a lower cost area, whatever you might think of Birmingham or Bessemer, like that still comes out to what, like 20 some grand a year. What if you have a family? What if you have medical issues? Like 50 bucks sounds pretty good when the state and federal minimum wage is 725, but that's garbage too. It really came down to people just recognizing and trying to help their coworkers recognize their own value. This system doesn't work without us. You're not going to get your package. You're not going to get your meds. You're not going to get your 50 pounds of cat food that people order

that human beings are lifting all day. You're not going to get that without us. Jeff Bezos isn't going to have his billions without us. So it was very hopeful. It was kind of defiant. It was like, yeah, we got this. We have to. We have to win. In terms of some of the other issues that really stuck out, I mentioned the bathrooms. The bathrooms really came up a lot. I think that came down to this bigger issue of basic dignity. These are grown-ass adults. Of course, there's younger folks in the warehouse as well, but the primary drivers of the campaign were people in their late 40s and their 50s, people who might have been in unions before or been involved in organizing before, who got there and saw that, okay, this ain't going to

work. There's no autonomy. People are being surveilled. People are being given mandatory overtime. They're being alerted of shift changes a couple hours before. They're not able to leave and pick up their children if they need to because there's so little flexibility. They're being monitored by this system called time off task, where if you deviate from your specific schedule by a few minutes, you get docked for that. You get in trouble for that. If you show up more than a minute late, you lose an hour of that time. The system is so inhumane and it treats people who are made of flesh and blood, like they're made of steel and circuits. And it's eventually that system is going to break down. They would say, when you come to work here, they warn you, this is really hard. You're going to need ibuprofen. Your feet are going to hurt.

This isn't going to be a picnic. And of course, warehouse work is always difficult. But working in a regular warehouse, you're not going to be inundated with these algorithmic, oppressive ticks everywhere. You're not going to have Big Brother breathing down your neck, commanding you from an app you're not even able to see during the day because you can't look at your phone. It's just inhumane. And people there, once they started talking about it and kind of were able to speak to their co-workers, which is, you know, people were also very isolated because they're, you know, however many feet apart, like it's a gigantic space. People weren't able to really talk to their co-workers unless they were crowded into the break room for their 30 minute lunch period that took them 10 minutes

to walk there and 10 minutes to walk back. and they had to wait five minutes for someone to use the microwave. Like it doesn't need to be like that. And I think people there just kind of realize, okay, this isn't acceptable. This isn't okay. And we actually have a shot to do something about it. Absolutely. Like it's hard to imagine working in that environment. And I think what you're describing there is how, yeah, warehouse work is always going to be difficult. But there's something particular about the work at Amazon with the use of the algorithms, with the kind of tracking everything that you're doing at all times to limit your ability to go to the bathroom, to have a break, and even the kind of discussion that you should like this because we're paying you $15 an hour when that's actually below average for that

industry, right? That's like assuming that warehouse work is a minimum wage job when it's not. But what you talked about there was how a lot of these workers and organizers were hopeful, were defiant, right? And in a piece that you wrote for Vox, you explained how a lot of the organizers and the workers who were involved in this campaign had a really deep faith and felt that their faith was driving them and kind of commanding them to engage in this campaign and try to stick up for their fellow workers, right? So I wonder if you can describe a bit about how faith was driving these workers and I guess the culture of where that comes from in Alabama and in the South. Right. That was something that really jumped out to me because I'm, you know, I'm a godless heathen.

That's not the first thing I'm going to think of when it comes to my primary motivating factors in trying to do good or to help out my fellow humans. But the folks down there, it became apparent as I spent more time with people and just more time listening to them and seeing how they interacted that, you know, there was something that stood out from other campaigns I've covered. And as I talked to more people and kind of uncovered a little bit more about who they were, it came out that, you know, the lead organizer, Josh Brewer, he used to be a youth pastor. He's an ordained minister.

Michael Foster, Big Mike. The first time I interviewed him, I asked him like, do you speak in your church? Because you seem like you have that vibe. And he's like, oh yeah, I do that like every week. And I post my sermons on Facebook. He is filled with the Holy Spirit. she felt that, you know, the spirit had moved her to be here. Like she left another job at US Pipe where she was for 10 years and something, you know, compelled her that she felt like she needed to go work in Amazon. And she wasn't sure why, but she felt like she needed to be there. And she's like, oh, this is my purpose. You know, so many of the other organizers and the workers, like this person's a pastor, this person's active in their church. It was just such a

foundational aspect of the campaign. And that's something that organizers confirmed, too, when I was talking to them for that article. They're like, yeah, well, we start every meal with a prayer. Like, God is a big part of this. Our faith is a big part of this because, you know, there's this underlying idea that, you know, to care for your fellow man, right? To make things better. Like, of course, the religious aspect, I didn't get too deep into it because that's personal for people. And also, I'm, you know, I'm like a real lapsed Catholic. I don't remember much of anything about all that.

It wasn't for me, but it really was for a lot of people there. And it was interesting to see because that's something that I don't think necessarily comes to the fore in a lot of organizing campaigns that we hear about. But the fact that we were where we were, we're in the Deep South, we're in Alabama, there were probably more churches than people in some parts of town. The religiosity, that's just everywhere. It's just part of the social fabric. You know, before the pandemic, people went to their church, they stay in touch with those congregations. That's just part of life there. So of course, it was part of this campaign, because it was so rooted in the area, you know, the RWSU office in Birmingham, like,

they weren't like outsiders who swooped in. This is folks who came in and brought their community together there. Big Mike told me that he felt like he was leading a flock. He would talk to like 30 or 40 workers a day, just talking about the union, but also talking about their money troubles or other issues they're having. Like it was a very personal touch that I think, you know, the religious aspect, the faith-based aspect played into that a lot too, just in the way that people wanted to care for one another.

You know, and that's something we saw too with the community outreach that came later, like there are churches and faith leaders involved. Reverend Dr. Barber from the Poor People's Campaign came down and did a whole big event

on Moral Monday at a local church in Bessemer. There are other religious leaders who were involved in canvassing and speaking to workers. It was a big part of everything. At first, I found it just personally a little bit alienating because I couldn't relate. But after a while, it kind of broke down to the fact that this is the kind of faith that you want to see, right? Where it just comes down to, am I doing good? Am I taking care of people? Am I making an impact in a positive way? And I was like, yo, I can get behind that. Like, no matter how many, you know, satanic goats I may have tattooed on me, I would go to church

with Big Mike, you know? Like, that was, it was very welcoming in a way that I wasn't expecting just from my own experiences with religion, but I really appreciate it. And I think was ultimately a very, you know very positive aspect of the whole campaign there. Yeah, I think what you're describing is why it stood out to me as well. You know, I'm an atheist, I grew up Catholic, and you know, I don't have very positive associations with religion. So then to read about how it was inspiring these people in a really positive way to kind of stick up for one another and to kind of build these communities. I thought that was really nice.

And I thought it was just great to hear how this works in a different way in, you know, a different part of North America, I guess. I'm not in the United States. Just because it's not at all like the experience in my community, I guess. Yeah, I never thought I would write a positive article about religion. I can tell you that much. Like, yeah, I raised Catholic, took a hard left turn, don't really want anything to do with any of it. But seeing that manifest in a positive and helpful way, I was like, okay, I get it. I can see why this is important. And if this is what's

driving folks like Jennifer and Mike to do what they're doing, then cool. You know, everyone has different motivations. And as long as they're all getting people to the best possible point, I'm like, sick. Sure. Awesome. Like, I'm glad nobody asked me to like, pray with them, because I don't know what I would have done. Maybe just kind of close my eyes and fudged it just to not be disrespectful actually i like because i'm you know kind of a yeah i have a lot of tattoos and i have really long hair and a bunch of piercings and stuff some of my tattoos are a little spicier than others and i was kind of worried about how to present myself down there you know because i come out of the heavy metal

scene and like i look like it and i was going into a very faith-based just this is a different community so i brought a lot of long sleeves but uh by the end of it and after i had felt like we'd And I was going into a very faith-based, just this is a different community. So I brought a lot of long sleeves. But by the end of it, and after I had felt like we'd gotten to know each other more, I was showing up in like tank tops. I was like, this is my deal. And everybody treated me the same. It's like, you don't have to believe in the same God or existence of a God to feel like people deserve to be treated like people, you know?

Absolutely. You know, if religion is still going to be there, that's the way it should be, right? Yeah. So I appreciated that. And I found that really interesting. And I thought it was an important point to bring up because it seemed like something that was really driving these people in their fight against Amazon. But there's another piece of this that I want to ask you about before I get to the

result and kind of what came after that. And that was, you know, as you described, this became a huge media story, right? It was not only media from across the United States going down there, but international media reporting on this as well. You know, workers really taking it to Amazon and taking it to Jeff Bezos in particular to try to stick up for their rights. And that also kind of got a lot of politicians in the United States to come out and say that they supported the workers and the union and that

Amazon shouldn't be taking certain tactics that we'll talk about to try to stop the union. So I wonder what you think of the role that the media response and the political response after that had on the campaign. I'm writing a piece about this today, actually, after we log off. So I'm glad that you brought it up. It's been interesting seeing people's analysis and criticism of the media response versus going off what I heard from the workers and organizers themselves. And of course, like somewhere in the middle is what the actual impact was. But when I was in Birmingham this past weekend, I was asking folks, so, you know, like everyone was paying attention. There's all of this, you know, all this attention being paid, all this media.

Did that matter? How did that have an impact? And, you know, one of the things that workers told me that I thought was really interesting was, you know, one of the tactics Amazon's been using to bust the union is using captive audience meetings where workers are pulled into a classroom and sat down with an anti-union consultant who gets paid mad money to tell them why unions are bad for like hours. But the union wasn't legally allowed on Amazon's property. So they didn't really have that same advantage. And given the pandemic, the workers and the organizers agreed that it wasn't really safe to have big meetings. Like you would usually in a union campaign, you'd have big meetings and picnics and, you know, social events to really, you know, get fired up. So one of the things that the workers told me was useful about all the media

coverage is that it helped educate their fellow workers just about the union and about the whole situation and give some context. Because at some points, it was difficult to really get the union message across given the setup and given the circumstances. So it actually helped change some workers' minds and helped inform some workers in the way they voted, which I thought was pretty cool. In terms of the broader campaign and how the organizers saw it, it was like they weren't planning for this to happen. But this turned into this gigantic story. And people were talking about unions and people were talking about Amazon's malfeasance. And people were talking about like, oh, people themselves about how they've gotten so many phone calls and messages from workers in different facilities for like, yo, how do we get in on this, essentially? So it's, you know, obviously,

media does not win a union election. That's an absurd thing to think anybody thinks. But in this case, it helped bolster public perception and support. It served as a way of educating and serving non-Amazon approved information to locals and to workers. And it did get, it got that political response, which, you know, politicians don't really matter when it comes to an individual workplace campaign, like they're window dressing it best, but it's still nice to have, you know, like having Representative Jim O'Bowman and Representative Cori Bush come down there and like having Bernie Sanders roll up with Killer Mike, like just showing folks that like powerful people are paying attention and they're on your side

and they support this effort. Like this was a good thing for you to do. At the very least, I feel like it made people feel good about what they're doing. I know a lot of people were extra excited about Danny Glover. He came down a couple times and signed baseballs. And just the last time I was there, he had a two-hour meeting with workers. It sounded like he got pretty emotional. I think you can't qualify or quantify or whateverify the actual impact it had.

But I think it's a good thing that it happens. And I think it's a good thing that you have the president of the United States sending out a pro-union message I think having the New York Times run coverage about a bunch of folks in Bessemer Alabama who are trying to fight the biggest company in the world I think all the video coverage that I was really happy I was able to do that reached millions of people and like the fact that they didn't win this time doesn't mean they're not going to win the next time or the next drive won't win and now there's so many more people who know, like, first of all, Amazon's the devil. Like, Amazon is not nearly as chill as their cheery corporate image and their little smile logo

would like to say. And also like, okay, if you're unhappy with your employer, you can actually do something. Like you can join a union. You can try to pull this off and it might even be easier for you at your workplace. You know, like I think more public education around unions is always a good thing, because we don't really get it in schools. And obviously, I'm a little biased as a labor reporter, but I think it is a good thing. And I like to think that most of us who went down there did a pretty good job. Yeah, I would completely agree that you did a good job. And you know, I also think I obviously can't say what effect it had locally because I don't have that knowledge, right? That's why I asked you

the question. But I think broadly, it's incredibly helpful to have those kind of stories and that kind of reporting being done because, you know, we live in this media environment where there's so much focus on business and what's happening with the biggest corporations. And there's so little focus on the workers and on unions and on labor. And so getting at least a bit more of that kind of like injected into the public discourse, it feels like that's really important. And that can kind of help at least a bit to push back on the kind of dominant narratives that we have around the economy and labor and things like that. Yeah, even in terms of Amazon, we saw, I think it was a couple days ago, Bezos put out some memo

that was widely shared that kind of acknowledged that in corporate business speak, like, yeah, maybe our working conditions aren't great. Maybe we'll work on that. It seems like it's gotten to a point where even Amazon has to admit like, okay, maybe we're not, you know, the happiest place on earth. Maybe we can make some adjustments. And just having them even his little memo touting that, you know, our workers get two 30 minute breaks on their 10 hour shift. Like, that should be enough. And I was like, when's the last time you worked 10 hours doing anything, Jeff Bezos?

Is that like your weekly allotment of answering emails? Like, one of the things that I always come back to is when I when I first interviewed Big Mike back in February, I asked him if there was anything you could say to Jeff Bezos, what would you say? And he was like, I would like to ask me if he's ever worked in a warehouse and if he knew what it's like. And we know he doesn't. But now a whole lot of other people do. Absolutely. And now so I want to get into, I guess, kind of the outcome of the campaign and what happens next, right? Obviously, the NLRB has countered the votes

and the union lost the campaign. Amazon won. At least for now, there won't be a union at the Bessemer warehouse. But in recent days, I believe, the retail, wholesale, and department store union filed a challenge with the NLRB about the tactics that the company had taken during the vote and how they potentially made this an illegitimate vote because of the influence that Amazon had over the workers during that period. Can you talk a bit about some of those tactics that Amazon took and how those things usually decrease support for a union among workers. It was interesting and not altogether unexpected that Amazon used both the old playbook

that every union buster uses and also threw in some innovations because they love to innovate. They love to disrupt. And, you know, we expected to see them doing all the classics like, you know, propaganda at the workplace, flyers everywhere, banners, anti-union messages on the closed circuit TVs inside. Amazon got to use the fact that they have so much access to their workers to send not only anti-union messages to their personal cell phones, they got to use the app that workers have to use to track their time at work on their phones. They even put flyers in the bathrooms, which is just insult to injury. So it's like, oh, yeah, you only get five minutes to be there. Guess what? Here's the anti-union message. And obviously, I mentioned the captive audience meetings. And those are a big sticking point with workers because they're like, so look, we get 15 minutes to go to the restroom, but we can spend hours in here being, you know, being bullied by anti-union

people. And one of the biggest sticking points that's been written about very widely that we kind of got into with More Perfect Union, the organization I was working with, is there was a mailbox installed in front of the facility in its own little tent that the company was encouraging workers to use to post their votes. Like, put your ballots in here. This was easier for you. It's great. Make sure you vote. Make sure you vote. And that was, you know, they weren't allowed to do that. They asked NLRB, hey, can we do this? NLRB is like, no, you can't do that. Like, get out of here. And then they worked with the Postal Service to do it anyway. And there's a lot of interesting reporting about what all went into that. And it seems shady.

And the actual effect that it had on workers, it wasn't that convenient, but it was super intimidating because here's this mailbox. Nobody knows who has the key or who's collecting the ballots or who's watching. There are cameras everywhere. You can see cameras trained on it from the building. There were managers going around encouraging workers, oh, make sure you vote. Did you vote yet? I saw that you didn't vote yet.

And it's like, well, how do they know I didn't vote yet? Just that feeling of surveillance and being watched. And that leads into kind of the bigger issues that RWDSU pointed out in their filings with NLRB, the fact that there was so much surveillance and intimidation and coercion and threats. I mean, some of the things that workers were being told in these captive audience meetings were like, oh, well, if you get a union in here like that might impact your pay or your health care or your retirement benefits. We might have to close down the facility. I don't know. Guess we'll see.

They're just hammered with this messaging of like, this will destroy everything you have. This will make everything worse. There are a couple of different attack lines they used. One of the earlier ones was just to denigrate RWDSU. It was like they called it a chicken plant union ones was just to denigrate RWDSU. It was like they called it a chicken plant union who just wants your money. And I was like, yeah, all those chicken plants they organized are making more money than you guys are. So maybe they're onto something there. They really pulled out every nasty trick in the book, which was expected because there is a union busting playbook. But they also went above and beyond

with things like they worked with the county to change the traffic lights in front of the facility to make it quicker, to make the flow of traffic quicker. That sounds reasonable on paper, but then when you add in the fact that there was an intersection right there where organizers were out there all day with pro-union messaging who were speaking to workers in their cars as they came in and as they left, which is an important part of their organizing campaign because it wasn't safe to go to people's houses. They couldn't have mass meetings. They were trying to get to people any way they could. And Amazon worked with the county to try and change that. I know that at least one person, Big Mike, he had to jump out of the way and almost got hit because it was such an

abrupt change. So it's a good case study and like what happens when you go to war against a corporation and seeing them pull out all of these old school tactics and some new school tactics. I think it'll be valuable for people watching from the sidelines to see, okay, this is what they're going to do next. Like this is what's going to happen. Basically, you can see that all of these tactics are naturally going to make people nervous about supporting the union, especially because their employer has so much power over them, right? There was a report in the New York Times, I believe, a few days ago,

speaking to some of the workers who voted no on the union. And one of the things that they said was that, you know, they were scared of losing their jobs or that Amazon would close its fulfillment center in Bessemer if the union won. And then that would mean that they wouldn't have a job at all. Right. And so there is obviously this this worry, this concern about just having their jobs that makes it difficult for them, I guess, to to take the risk of forming a union in this kind of atmosphere. And that's exactly why Amazon targets these low income communities that are already under-resourced and neglected. There aren't that many good paying jobs in the area. So of course, Amazon at 15 bucks, that's better than 11 bucks at Walmart or 725 somewhere else. Like a lot of the folks that were a part of the unit who are working there now are younger people who are like, this is maybe their first decent paying job. You don't know what people are dealing with, what medical issues they

may have, what obligations, what family situations. People need to make their money. People need to be able to pay their bills and try to scrape by on a decent living. And if you're working in this place that you're a newer part of the workforce, or it's just the best job you've had in a while, and your employer is like, well, if you vote for this thing, that might all go away. Vote wisely. What are you going to do? I, of course, I understand it. I understand being scared of that. And the fact that there are other unionized warehouses and facilities in the area that pay more, like, cool, but you can't necessarily pick up and move everything and just get a new job like that. Amazon moves into these communities and takes full advantage of them and sometimes works

with local government to take advantage of them too. And they think they can get away with it. They're able to operate with such impunity. And I think this campaign showed that at the very least, people are watching. People are willing to fight back. You know, they've got, God god 800 facilities across the country i just found out yesterday there are 50 in the philadelphia area they're trying to open a new one in south philly and another part of the city where people are unemployed people need work people need

health care like here here we're gonna offer you some scraps but table scraps are better than starving so when someone tries to threaten you and coerce you and be like, look, not telling you how to vote, but you could fuck up your whole life if you sign this ballot and take a chance. It's unfortunate, but it's understandable. Until we have decent healthcare in this country and we have some semblance of a safety net and there's a decent minimum wage, people are going to keep getting trapped in these situations where it's like, do I pick between paying my bills and like maybe getting my mom's medication or trying to be part of something bigger that might work out? You know, you can really see how they're taking full advantage of the inequality that has grown over the past,

you know, decade in particular, but even longer than that, when you look at the longer trends. I wonder, you know, obviously, you've talked about how difficult it is working at Amazon and how hopeful the workers were at this campaign. So when you went down after the results came in, what was the mood among the workers and the organizers? My plane landed, I think, just as the results were hitting Twitter. But I already kind of knew what to expect because I had a call with one of the organizers the day before. He just called me up and was like, look, here's where I think it's going to go. So I was kind of prepared. You know, by the time the results went out, like there had already been individual meetings between organizers and workers to kind of lay it out like, look, this is what's going to happen. Like this is where we're at. I know that some of the workers, especially those

who are super involved, like Daryl Richardson and Jennifer Bates, they were really sad. You know, they were disappointed. They were unhappy. Like Daryl told me about he and Jennifer sitting in his truck after hearing the results, just kind of thinking like, well, shit, what do we do now? Because it is a big loss. Like in the grand scheme of things, it's a much bigger struggle. It's the first battle in a bigger war. Like we know that, but it still hurts to lose, you know? Like I think everyone on our team, when It's a much bigger struggle. It's the first battle in a bigger war. We know that, but it still hurts to lose. I think everyone on our team, when it's a big team, was hoping for a clean resolution, a clean, decisive victory. And I honestly thought they would pull it off. Up until they started counting the votes and the numbers started getting dicey, I was surprised. It was like, damn, Amazon really got in there. And it sounds like a lot of the

votes that were cast were cast kind of early in February before there was really this public support and this media attention before it turned into what it turned into. You know, when the only voice in people's ear was just Amazon, that's where a lot of the early votes came in. And then there was a surge in yes votes after March 1st. And of course, a lot of those ballots were the ones that Amazon challenged. I think there are about 400 yes votes after March 1st. And of course, a lot of those ballots were the ones that Amazon challenged. I think there were about 400 yes votes that didn't even get counted because they were challenged and they wouldn't have impacted the outcome, but it would have looked a lot nicer. Like 1100 versus 1700 or whatever, it would have been a softer blow. But by the time I

got there and I started talking to people and checking in on people, they were like, okay, this is a setback, but we're going to keep going. We already have like our legal strategy. We're already planning to continue organizing and we're going to keep having conversations. We're going to get to the point where soon we can have picnics and meet up in person. Like obviously the union, RWSU isn't giving up on this. Like they already filed their charges. They have a whole strategy. They're hoping to rerun the election and they're hoping to get to a point where that is the decisive victory we want. But they're also looking at other facilities in the South. Because I mean, if you want to organize the South, where the South goes, the rest of the country goes, right? So it was a setback, but I don't know that it was as much of a defeat as some of the

post-election analysis made it out to be. I think there was a lot of fair critique. And I think there was a lot of unfair and uninformed critique. And, you know, of course, that's going to happen because there was so much media attention while it was happening. Of course, all of the post-election analysis is going to be waves and waves. But I will say that there was a very mournful and almost scornful in some ways response on social media and like in the chatter that you saw. And contrasting that with what I heard on the ground at the rally talking to workers where there is still so much hope. That was like the defining characteristic of this campaign for me, all the hopefulness of it where people were like, I know we're going to win. And okay, it's going to take longer, but okay, we're going to win. Like, I believe, you know, I've been praying on this. I've been working for this,

like, I'm not ready to give up. And I think if the workers aren't ready to give up, then the rest of us certainly shouldn't be expected to give up on them. I think you just expect like some kind of a negative response on Twitter, right? Like that, that's what you expect from the platform. That's what's going to happen, especially when it's a lot of people who are not directly connected to what's going on. But it's so good to hear you say that down there, you know, these people who are actually directly impacted by this do not feel defeated, but feel like there is a path forward to keep fighting, whether that is through challenging the vote, whether that is through running a new election in the future, whether that is through, you know, taking advantage of the fact that vaccines are

rolling out, so it'll be easier for them to actually talk directly to workers and to hold these meetings. You know, I think that is really hopeful for where it might go in the future for those workers. And in particular, hearing that they are kind of expanding their view to other warehouses down there. Yeah, you know, the thing is, they already have their union, right? It's not federally recognized. It's not on paper. But there's 1100 people in that warehouse who voted yes for a union. And there's a number of others that probably would have voted yes if there was more time, or would have changed their votes if they could, because we heard a little bit of that too, like people who regretted their no votes. So it's like, you don't need a

contract or a federal nod or any bells and whistles to be a union. A union is a bunch of workers coming together collectively to fight for themselves. And I think that's absolutely what we're going to keep seeing from the workers in Bessemer. I, you know, I know that, yeah, like you said, Twitter is a hellhole and media is not much better sometimes. And I think that the organizers have learned a few lessons. I know that there's always internal debates around strategy, even as the campaign was going. And I'm hoping that some of the lessons that were learned and the changing conditions of the pandemic will have an impact. Because that's one of the things that I think got downplayed a little bit. All the analysis and critique was like, you know, we're still in a pandemic and this is all happening in a pandemic in an area that was like a predominantly Black

area. This pandemic is predominantly impacting Black folks. What if one of the organizers had gotten some workers sick? What if the whole organizing team had gotten sick and need to isolate for two weeks? Like I fully understand why there's critique around them not, you know, say doing home visits or holding bigger meetings. But I think we have to remember that we're in a pandemic and dead workers don't vote. You know, I think it kind of comes down to that. Absolutely. And, you know, I think it's important that the union show that they care about workers and their safety in a way that Amazon hasn't been doing. So, you know, I completely take that point. I wanted to ask you about beyond Bessemer, though, because obviously you were talking about how the union has been

contacted by workers from across the country. I think there was a report that said like a thousand workers or something had reached out for more information or were looking to organize their warehouses. You know, as you're talking about there, the workers have their union. It's just not officially recognized, right? And there were reports of workers in some other facilities. I can't remember where else it was in the United States where they essentially said, you know, we are organizing here. We are pushing back against Amazon. We are trying to improve our conditions and we're not interested in going the NLRB route to get that kind of like official certification. So I wonder what you make of that. And can you explain for the listeners what the difference between

like an NLRB union and just, I guess, not having that NLRB recognition would be? Right. I think the one you're referring to is Amazonians United. I think that was the workers in Chicago had put out that statement after the Bessemer defeat, saying that, you know, we don't, yeah, we don't need NLRB. We're going to do this ourselves. We're going to follow the Solidarity Unionism model, which is like part of the IWW, Industrial Works of the World, part of their whole thing. And they've been around since like 1901. So it's definitely an established model. And it makes sense to me that workers especially in the tech space especially in these gargantuan corporate clutches would kind of take that approach because

it's hard to organize a company that spans the globe it's like it takes us back to you know it was hard enough to try and organize standard Oil and all of these massive railroad bearing companies back in the Gilded Age. Now, they didn't even have the Internet. So they definitely didn't have algorithms or apps or any of the shit we deal with right now. Right. So the fact that we have organizations like Amazonians United, we have the Congress of Essential Workers in Staten Island have just been pushing for their own independent union. I think it can only be a good thing that people are thinking on their feet and trying to find different ways into the belly of the beast, right? Because if the NLRB route didn't work here, maybe it'll work somewhere else. But maybe a different approach will work in a different location. Maybe it'll get us closer in some way. I think we need to use every tool available. One of the interesting developments we saw recently with the Alphabet workers in the Googleverse, they're also pursuing this kind of solidarity unionism, minority unionism, whatever you want to call it. They're also going that route because they've got like 20,000 workers to deal with in their workplace. What do you do with that?

To do the kind of deep organizing you need to win an election, to win that kind of battle, that would make Smithville look like a five-minute joyride. I'm always happy to see people organizing. I would like the people and workers who are organizing to maybe be a little more generous with one another and to keep their critiques comradely when it comes to the ways that people are trying to fight back against empire and fight back against capital and try to wrest back whatever power they can. And I think that there's always a good thing to read up on labor history and to read up on what the IWW has done in the past and the successes that they have notched and the losses that they dealt with and to kind of compare and contrast and decide what works for you. You know, on one side, there's the NLRB election,

which I don't even actually have much personal experience with in doing union stuff because the union effort that I was involved in back at Vice, we were voluntarily recognized. That's kind of the gold standard for that side of things, right? Where you send out your petition to the company, like, yo, we want to unionize. And they're like, okay, word, fine. And then you get to get down to the business of bargaining. But that is not usually what happens. Usually you have to fight it out with an election and it takes a long time. And there's plenty of opportunities for the company to union bust like what we saw at Amazon. All of these like messy extra side aspects of it that honestly

passing the PRO Act would do a lot to get rid of. Like it would be sweet if that actually worked, if our government actually did something useful for working people. But I'm crossing fingers. I'm not going to hold my breath. And on the other side of things, there's this idea, which is valid and true, that you don't need anyone to acknowledge your union. You don't need the government to give you a rubber stamp and say, okay, you're a union now. Once you and your coworkers come together and decide to fight collectively and advocate for yourselves against the bosses, you're a union. You don't have to be a union on paper. You can march on the bus. You can send petitions. You can go public with your demands. There are a lot of different tactics you can use, and there are a lot of different avenues available. I don't think

there's one right way to be a union, obviously, but there's not one right way to form a union either. It comes down to what you and your co-workers need and what you want and what you think is winnable. And I think, you know, fuck it. Try whatever you got. Like if the MLRB thing don't work, like call up your wobbly friends and see what they have to say. Like, I don't know if we'll ever get to the one big union, but we definitely need more

of them at the very least. And I think we should use whatever tools we have in our arsenal to get there. I couldn't agree with that more. Obviously, I have no personal experience with unionizing or anything like that. So from my perspective, it's like whatever they are doing to try to organize and push back on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, like I'm behind them 100%. And I wanted to end by asking you, you know, as you mentioned there about the PRO Act. This is obviously a piece of legislation that is being pushed in the United States right now that seems to be picking up supporters. I

saw today that a particularly conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin, is behind it now. What would this mean for the growing efforts to unionize at Amazon, in tech, in media, and across many industries, I think, that we've been seeing in the United States in recent years? Right. So it's not a magic bullet. I don't think any legislation that's going to come out of the US government is going to be all good for anybody. It is definitely a good start towards amending and updating our broken labor laws, which the majority of the most major ones stretch back to 1935 during the New Deal. And they've tried tried to update them a couple times, but it never gets through Congress because our country is hell. But they actually have a fighting chance with this one.

And the reason it's so important is that it would actually make it a lot easier for workers to form a union. There's a lot of other cool stuff in there, right? But that's the most basic level. If we'd had the PRO Act a year ago, the Amazon workers investment would already have their union because they'd signed enough union cards signaling their intent to unionize way back months ago. That's one of the most basic things in terms of union recognition that you could aim for is something called card check, where if enough people who qualify sign cards being like, yo, I want to be in a union, then it's like, oh, cool. So we have to recognize you and we have to start bargaining with you. It simplifies the process to an incredibly streamlined way. And it cuts out all of that messy wiggle room for companies to union bust. Like you can't be doing

captive audience meetings under the pro act. I mean, half of the shit that Amazon was pulling, you can't be doing. I really should like go through and read the whole thing so I can like spout it all off, you know, but I've mostly been paying attention to it in terms of how it impacted Amazon and how it's going to impact things going forward. And we're so much closer than I thought we would get. There's just a couple like asshole Democrats holding it up. And it's like, I don't like any of them, you know, but it's like, if we can actually get this through, it would have a massive impact on the number of unionized workers in this country, which would then have a material impact on, you know, dealing with poverty and all of the

horrible conditions of living in this country. Like unions boost wages and get more people healthcare and offer more protections to marginalized workers. Like people get more paid days off and sick days so they can care for their families. Like unions are a net good and having more unions is going to be a net good for our terrible country. And hitting the PRO Act will get us closer to having more unions and the most basic sense of things. It would be very cool if it gets passed than if it actually doesn't get destroyed with whatever legislative nonsense that they do after a bill gets passed.

Because more unions are a good thing because more people need those protections. There's still a few protections for people in this country that, you know, a union can be an absolute lifeline. And if we can get to a point where that's accessible to more people, that's going to save a lot of people a lot of heartache and maybe even save some lives, you know? If it's easier for people to form unions, that means it's easier for workers to develop their collective power to be able to push back and demand improvements. Kim, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat to fill us in on everything with Amazon and what has been

happening with this campaign and, you know, the hope that still exists moving forward. So thank you so much. Yeah, hope springs eternal. That's the only way we get anywhere. Kim Kelly is a freelance labor reporter and the author of the forthcoming book, Fight Like Hell, from One Signal Publishers that will be coming out in 2022. You can follow Kim on Twitter at at Grim Kim. You can follow me at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you like the show and you want to support us in this last week of this first birthday fundraiser, please consider going to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus and becoming a supporter.

Thanks for listening. Thank you.