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      in US Politics

      Amazon won the Alabama union fight. But don’t mourn – organize | Indigo Olivier

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      Nearly a week after Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, cast their ballots to determine whether or not to form a union, a final tally shows workers lost their campaign by a more than two-to-one margin. The results are being contested by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which claims Amazon coerced and intimidated workers with their belligerent anti-union campaign. Even if the results are thrown out and another election is held, the outcome is likely to remain unchanged.During the agonizing week-long vote count, all you could do was wait and hope. Little snippets of information trickled in, followed by more waiting. The loss, while not surprising, is a disappointment to not only the workers and supporters who threw so much into this campaign but to the labor movement as a whole.Postmortems abound about the warning signs of defeat, the tactical errors made by organizers, the urgent need for labor law reform, and the demoralizing effect this outcome might have on other workers. In any case, the final takeaway should always be: don’t mourn. Organize.While there is much to learn from the strategy deployed in Bessemer, the defeat is not so much an indictment of the specifics of this one union drive as it is of the balance of power between labor and capital as a whole.Amazon started off with the upper hand and used every tool it could to not only defeat Bessemer workers but to send a clear message to others who might try to organize at other fulfillment centers: you don’t stand a chance.For weeks, Amazon sent a barrage of anti-union messaging to its employees, posted “vote no” flyers in bathroom stalls, texted workers on a regular basis, waged a social media campaign linking back to the “Do It Without Dues” website, changed traffic lights outside the facility, held “captive audience” meetings with workers to dissuade them from voting “yes,” and spent nearly $10,000 a day on union-busting consulting firms.The company followed a familiar anti-union playbook; in fact, they went even further, pressuring USPS officials to install a private ballot box on company property all while denying the reality of their workers peeing in bottles and defecating in bags to meet merciless delivery quotas – a reality that was quickly confirmed by reporters.With all eyes on Amazon, the entire country has just seen the lengths corporations will go to prevent workers from organizing.While the legality of some of these tactics is being challenged by the RWDSU, the reality is that most of them are commonplace and, in the eyes of America’s lopsided and mostly toothless labor laws, fair game. Even if Amazon is found to have violated workers’ rights in Bessemer, it is unlikely that the company will face any serious consequences.More than anything, this defeat stressed the immediate importance of passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (Pro Act) which would ban captive audience meetings, severely limit corporate interference, invalidate right-to-work legislation and strengthen collective bargaining as a whole.The Pro Act, which would represent the most significant federal labor legislation in decades, passed the House in early May and is all but certain to be voted down in the evenly split Senate.President Biden has spoken strongly in favor of the legislation, but its passage is unlikely without eliminating the filibuster – an action for which Biden has withheld full commitment.The Pro Act would allow labor to move from the defensive to the offensive which is crucial when workers – especially at giant corporations like Amazon – already have the deck stacked against them.A battle has been lost but an advance was made in the war to shift the focus of power from politicians to workersBiden has so far proven to be both the most pro-labor president in modern history and not nearly where we need him to be to deliver the goods. He sent a message of support to workers organizing in Alabama and around the country but stopped short of calling Amazon out by name. He’s encouraged Congress to pass the Pro Act without forging a viable path to follow through. Simply put, he lacks the courage to do what is needed to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen”.Unions and other pro-labor groups have taken it upon themselves to move things forward. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has shifted the national organizing infrastructure used for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign to make hundreds of thousands of calls convincing people of the urgent necessity of the Pro Act.While the Bessemer vote is devastating, the public attention and enthusiasm that was shown to the organizers there is exactly what is needed to make any significant strides in the labor movement, especially if the Senate is going to stall for as long as it can with Green Eggs and Ham.Bessemer was the most high-profile union election in recent memory and it started a national conversation about organized labor and poor working conditions. This election saturated social media (when was the last time you saw a viral TikTok about the importance of union dues?) and has even prompted talk of organizing other Amazon facilities.A battle has been lost but an advance was made in the slow ideological war to shift the public focus of power from politicians to workers. Amazon may have been successful in temporarily exorcising any attempt to organize from within, but the specter still haunts them. More

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      in US Politics

      What if the most important election of the year is happening right now in Alabama? | Indigo Olivier

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      This month, 5,800 Amazon warehouse employees in Bessemer, Alabama, will be voting on whether or not to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in what could turn out to be the most important election of the year.While the Bessemer fulfillment center itself is a drop in the bucket when compared to Amazon’s roughly 500 facilities around the country, this could be the ballot heard around the world. If successful, this election would mark the first unionized Amazon facility in the US.Over the past 26 years, Jeff Bezos has built himself a private empire. Amazon is now the second largest employer in the US, after Walmart, and the fifth largest in the world. The more than 800,000 Amazon employees across the country represent a population between the size of Maine and Montana. Globally, the company employs more than 1 million workers.Amazon is also the largest online retailer in the world, with a market cap (or value of the company’s shares) at $1.5tn – larger than the GDPs of most countries. The power this company yields is unrivaled.Yet Amazon’s success has been made possible by the labor of the underpaid and overworked employees who keep operations running; by weakened anti-trust laws; by a larger US economic shift from manufacturing to the service and logistics sectors; and, of course, by generous government subsidies, which have seen the company get away with paying no taxes in recent years.Unions alone will not bring Amazon to heel – but without them, all bets are off.The message this election will send to workers is: if we can do it in the anti-labor, “right-to-work” south against one of the most powerful companies in the world – one with no scruples with regards to its anti-union tactics – then workers can unionize anywhere.It would be a marked shift since Ronald Reagan’s mass firing of striking air traffic control workers, which caused a chilling effect on organized labor and ushered in a new pro-business, anti-worker era. Labor organizers are hoping that a victory in Bessemer might turn this tide.The labor movement recognizes the significance of this election. Members of the AFL-CIO and nurses from a recently unionized hospital in North Carolina have been phone banking to speak with Bessemer workers directly about the importance of voting yes on a union. Supporters have also made it clear that the fight at the Bessemer facility, where about 85% of workers are Black, is also a fight for racial justice.Biden’s recent statement in support of workers organizing in Alabama suggests that under this administration significant gains for labor can be won, but only if workers are willing to fight for them.One of the biggest lies sold to the American public has been to convince the vast majority of people that “politics” means showing up to the polls every few years to elect representative officials who will take it from there. Like many aspects of our lives, politics has become something to consume passively. It’s cable news networks, the punditry class, bumper stickers, lawn signs, campaign donations. It’s horse-race journalism and partisan tabloids.A union victory for one workplace is a victory for all workersIt has narrowed the spectrum of the “political” to red and blue, kids in cages or “migrant overflow facilities”, dog whistles over bull horns, an open disdain for working people or a veneer of compassion. Far fewer see the actions they take day-to-day, in the workplaces where we spend the majority of our waking lives, as something worthy of being political.The Bessemer election has the potential to topple this frame in favor of a new horizon. The difference between electoral politics and labor organizing is the difference between voting in a president who says he will phase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next four years – yet surrenders before the battle begins – and taking direct action to ensure that higher wages are guaranteed in your contract immediately.Amazon prides itself on paying its workers $15 an hour – more than double the federal minimum wage – plus benefits. But rather than being a product of the benevolence of an enlightened CEO, we should all understand this to be a Machiavellian tactic used to preempt the serfs from storming the castle.More importantly, workers organizing towards a union must recognize that in the long run, without labor protections, every employee lives under the dictates of an unforgiving and despotic market. These “tides” will only turn when workers see themselves as a unified force and recognize that a union victory for one workplace is a victory for all workers. It favors a rising tide that will lift all boats to the trickle-down economics that have left us in perpetual drought.The Bessemer election is not one in which fulfillment center employees will cast their ballots and abdicate all further responsibilities. Rather, this vote would open the floodgates. More

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      in US Politics

      Frankie Boyle’s big quiz of 2020: ‘How much have you subconsciously tried to suppress?’

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      2020: what a time to still briefly be alive. Let’s look back on the year, after a Christmas so grim for Great Britain that it was almost as if Santa had been reading some history. They said it was political correctness that would end Christmas but now, after the humble office worker was reduced to getting off with their own partner at the Zoom Christmas do, we realise it was actually ended by electing people who try to source medical supplies through their mate’s pest control firm. The Tardis would stop in 2020 barely long enough for Doctor Who to empty its chemical toilet.Every so often, I remember we will be leaving the EU in the middle of a plague and the worst recession in modern history, and then black out and wake up at the bottom of my garden in a pile of canned goods. As Brexit negotiations continued, a 27-acre site in Kent was set to become a lorry park that can take 2,000 lorries. Complaining about your locked gym will soon seem very quaint, when every source of dietary protein is in a parked lorry that can’t be processed because the driver has an apostrophe in his name.One way to not get too down about 2020 is to remind yourself that next year will be worse. But how much of the year can you remember, and how much have you subconsciously tried to suppress? Let’s find out!1. The Labour partyIn many ways, the Labour party should be the natural choice to run a bitterly divided country full of people who hate each other. Keir Starmer, looking like a cross between the bloke who says he’s “unstoppable” before getting fired first on the Apprentice, and an Anglican vicar trying to hold in a fart at a funeral, has been pursuing the approval of newspapers that wouldn’t stop backing the Tories if they crop-dusted the whole country in hot shit. The nationalist posturing required makes him look deeply uncomfortable, as if he’s been asked if he personally would sleep with the Queen and is afraid of both answers. By withdrawing the whip from Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer signalled that he can contain the threat posed by the left of the party, which currently consists of a handful of MPs, maybe 10 journalists, and a couple of dozen shitposters called things like @WetAssProletariat.Where did Keir Starmer choose to deliver his keynote Labour conference speech?a) His own kitchen.b) Labour party HQ in Westminster.c) A socially distanced PPE factory in the East End of London.d) A corridor in a deserted Doncaster arts centre.2. Test and traceThe government spent £12bn on it, and yet still the only reliable app for alerting you to the fact that someone deadly is nearby is the one that shows you when your Uber driver has arrived. Of course Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed complaints from people who had to travel 200 miles for a test: he regularly commutes between now and the 1840s, strapped into something built from plans drawn up to the final words of the tortured HG Wells, with a groundsman furiously shovelling venison into a flux capacitor.Which of these organisations was not given contracts to help implement the NHS test-and-trace system?a) Serco.b) Capita.c) The NHS.d) Sitel.3. Boris JohnsonIt’s difficult to speculate on the long-term effects that the pandemic will have on British politics; all we know for certain is that 40% of the survivors will vote Conservative. One flaw in Labour’s relentless framing of prime ministerial incompetence is that the Conservatives can just replace him with someone more competent – possibly Rishi Sunak, and his air of a sixth former who still wears their school uniform. Boris Johnson may be a marshmallow toasting on the funeral pyre of Britain, a post-apocalyptic snowman with the increasingly dishevelled air of something that’s been tied to the front grille of a bin lorry, a demented, sex-case vacuum cleaner bag; but there’s no denying he does possess some Churchillian qualities: racism and obesity.Which of these did Boris Johnson fail to do in his first 365 days as prime minister?a) Get divorced.b) Have a baby.c) Contract coronavirus.d) Secure a trade agreement with the EU.4. Laurence FoxTaking time out from tweeting denials of his privilege while wearing three-piece pyjamas, Laurence (19th-century) Fox announced the launch of his new political party. He certainly looked determined. Or was it sad? I just never quite know which one he’s doing.No doubt he considers himself to be on the Reich side of history, but he may yet regret his statements on Black Lives Matter: the way his acting career’s going, there could well be auditions where he’ll have to take a knee. Fox’s head points to a combination of robust genes and forceps pressure, showing that from the very start he had a reluctance to face the real world. The sort of people who went to his famous boarding school would never be so gauche as to actually mention the name Harrow, except when phoning up for a Chinese takeaway, pissed.In 2020, Fox received large donations for his laughable new culture-war party, and it must have been odd to receive millions of pounds that wasn’t a divorce settlement from the mother of his children. We can only hope that his interest in politics wanes soon, and he can get back on stage and give us his long overdue Othello.Which of these is not something Laurence Fox did this year?a) Announced a personal boycott of Sainsbury’s.b) Got dropped by his acting agent over the phone.c) Acted in a film.d) Got told to fuck off by the Pogues.5. Social mediaIn 2020, the only thing you could say for sure when you met an optimist was that they weren’t on Facebook. Hate-sharing app Twitter has again spent the year setting itself up as an arbiter of morals, a role it’s as convincing in as the Love Island casting department. Personally, I left Twitter because of death threats: Eamonn Holmes just didn’t seem to be reading them any more.Which of these Twitter users has the most followers, and which the least? One point for each correctly placed. a) Donald Trump.b) Katy Perry.c) Logan Paul.d) BTS.6. Trump v BidenThe broad takeaway from the US election is that Americans count as slowly as one would expect. Joe Biden is not exactly overflowing with presence. You see his picture and the first thing you think is, “Was that already in there when I bought the frame?” Even at his most strident, he barely has the presence of a finger-wagging, spectral grandparent that appears as you hover, undecided, over a perineum. He could become the first president assassinated by an icy patch outside the post office.Still, Biden performed surprisingly well during the campaign, especially when you consider that he had to put up with the distraction of his mother’s voice calling his name gently from a bright light. He’s now so close to death that he can talk directly to the Ancestors, and has been ending every press conference by asking people if they have any questions for David Bowie.How old would Joe Biden be by the end of a second term in office?a) 86.b) 84.c) 88.d) 90.7. AsylumPeter Sutcliffe died and Priti Patel didn’t move on the list of Britain’s 10 Worst People, whereas I went up one. Patel has stood out as uniquely dreadful even in a cabinet that is basically Carry On Lord Of The Flies, dresses as if she’s going to the funeral of someone she hates, and often speaks as if trapped in a loveless marriage with her interviewer.Which of the following proposals did Priti Patel’s Home Office not consider as a way of deterring people from seeking asylum in Britain?a) Building a giant wave machine in the English channel.b) Processing asylum seekers on a volcanic outcrop in the South Atlantic, a thousand miles from the nearest landmass.c) Training swordfish to burst dinghies.d) Housing asylum applicants on decommissioned oil rigs in the North Sea.8. Grant ShappsGrant Shapps looks like a Blackpool waxwork of Clive Anderson, and has the permanent expression in every TV appearance of a man watching his train pull away behind the camera.But what is his actual job title?a) Secretary of state for transport.b) Minister for Brexit.c) Minister of state for international development.d) Chief whip.9. Conspiracy theoristsThe pandemic has been hard on many conspiracy theorists: eight months of men keeping their distance, too. There are people who believe Covid-19 is spread by 5G. If only that were true: put Virgin Media in charge and we’d be clear of it in days.An anti-mask demonstration in Trafalgar Square on 29 August drew thousands of protesters: which of these countercultural celebrities did not speak?a) Piers Corbyn.b) David Icke.c) Chico Slimani from The X Factor.d) Bill Drummond from the KLF.10. Jeff BezosOur disposable culture isn’t all bad. Without it, I’d miss that warm glow on Boxing Day when my son stuffs my gift in the bin and I imagine, in just a couple of years’ time, the joy on the face of the kid who pulls it from a pile of dirty syringes in a Philippines landfill. Jeff Bezos has become the world’s wealthiest man by pioneering a kind of delivery Argos. I look at Bezos and wonder if the rest of us evolved too much: his acquisitiveness is possibly explained by the fact he looks like a newborn constantly searching for a nipple.What was the most money Bezos made in a single day of the pandemic? a) $100m.b) Nothing. He has said all his profits will go towards developing Covid therapies.c) $150m.d) $13bn.11. PrisonGhislaine Maxwell was arrested. For those of you too young to remember, Ghislaine is the daughter of a media mogul whose death sent ripples around the world – because he was obese and fell in the ocean. Steve Bannon was also arrested and charged with fraud. On the wing, prisoners described his potential arrival as “whatever’s the opposite to fresh meat”.But which of the following are not currently in jail?a) Harvey Weinstein.b) Bill Cosby.c) Ricardo Medina Jr, the red Power Ranger.d) The cops who killed Breonna Taylor.12. Donald TrumpThis year’s presidential debates were like looking through the window of a care home on the day the staff thought they’d play prescription roulette. By managing only to speak to his base and alienating everyone else, Trump ended up being the definitive Twitter president. There’s so much wrong with him you could talk about his presidency for ever and never run out of things to criticise. It’s the equivalent of letting a child repaint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and then pointing out all the bits that aren’t as good as Michelangelo’s. “Is that meant to be God, Timmy? Why is he eating a Babybel?”In hospital, Trump was given a new drug made by Regeneron, which sounds like the robot who’ll present Match Of The Day once Gary Lineker’s been strapped into the re-education dinghy. He seemed to pull through, but it’s hard to gauge the health of someone who looks like Frankenstein’s monster won a holiday, and who chooses to have the skin colour of a dialysis machine emptied on to snow.Which of these is not something Trump achieved this year?a) The most votes for an incumbent candidate.b) The most retweeted tweet of all time.c) The highest US death toll in a century.d) The most golf ever played by a sitting President.13. The EurosScotland qualified for next year’s Euros after beating Serbia. Facing a team that grew up in a war zone in the 1990s, Serbia lost on penalties.When did Scotland last qualify for a major tournament? a) Argentina 1978.b) Italia 1990.c) France 1998.d) Mexico 1986.14. DystopiaIf only late-stage capitalism could get behind equality and lead us to a golden age where people of all skin colours are considered equally dispensable. For the time being, we needn’t fear AI. The robot that steals your job is expensive. You are cheap. You can only die, whereas it may get scratched.I wonder if our leaders’ go-to platitude, “We’re all in this together”, will ever ring true? Perhaps after the next wave of austerity, as it blares through speakers in the bunk-bedded dormitory of a derelict Sports Direct, rousing us at dawn so that we can harvest kelp in the shallows in exchange for the fibre waste collected from the juicers of gated communities, wearing nothing but underpants: ones we never seem to fully own, underpants where there always seems to be one more payment due to the Corporation.We will dream of one day having our own igloo built from blocks cut from sewer-fat, maybe even moving to a better neighbourhood, just as soon as it’s hot enough to slide our house there. As we heave our bales on to the gangmaster’s counter, the ex-performers among us will kid ourselves it’s still showbiz, as we’re permitted to crack a joke, and if the gangmaster smiles he’ll throw us a treat. We opt for a classic: surely no one has ever not laughed at one where bagpipes are confused with an octopus wearing pyjamas? But just as we can almost taste sugar, a mangled tentacle drops from our kelp block into our open mouth and ruins the moment.Which one of these was not a scientific breakthrough in 2020?a) The discovery that bacteria can survive in space for several years.b) A bionic breakthrough that allows people with paralysis to control computers using their thoughts.c) The confirmation that there are several large saltwater lakes under the ice in the south polar region of the planet Mars.d) An AI which can alter magnetic fields in the human brain, influencing thoughts.Answers1. d. 2. c. 3. d. 4. c.5. Most to least: Perry, Trump, BTS, Paul. 6. a. 7. c. 8. a.9. d.10. d. 11. d. 12. b. 13. c. 14. d. More

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      in Elections

      'Too much power': key moments as tech CEOs face historic US hearing – video

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      Top US tech bosses are told they are censoring political speech, spreading fake news and ‘killing’ the engines of the US economy in a combative and historic congressional hearing.
      Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, appeared before members of the house judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee and faced intense questioning on everything from market dominance and data surveillance to military contracts and political censorship.
      ‘Too much power’: Congress grills top tech CEOs in combative antitrust hearing

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      in US Politics

      US lawmakers demand Jeff Bezos testify over Amazon’s 'possibly criminally false' statements

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      House lawmakers said they could subpoena CEO to testify in antitrust investigation if he doesn’t appear voluntarily House lawmakers are asking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify to address possible misleading statements by the company on its competition practices. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP A bipartisan group of House lawmakers investigating Amazon for possible antitrust violations have […] More

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      in US Politics

      America's billionaires are giving to charity – but much of it is self-serving rubbish | Robert Reich

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      America’s billionaires are giving to charity – but much of it is self-serving rubbish Robert Reich Well-publicized philanthropy shows how afraid the super-rich are of a larger social safety net – and higher taxes Jeff Bezos’s $100m donation, for example, amounts to about 11 days of his income. Photograph: Katherine Taylor/Reuters As millions of jobless Americans […] More