Image via Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The US International Brotherhood of Teamsters has passed a resolution at its virtual convention that states "that there is no clearer example of how America is failing the working class than Amazon" and commits to "building worker power at Amazon and helping those workers achieve a union contract" as a "top priority".
According to the resolution "Amazon is changing the nature of work in our country and touches many core Teamster industries and employers such as UPS, parcel delivery, freight, airline, food distribution and motion picture, and presents an existential threat to the standards we have set in these industries".
In a press release Randy Korgan, Teamsters National Director for Amazon states:
Amazon presents a massive threat to working-class communities and good jobs in the logistics industry. Amazon workers face dehumanizing, unsafe and low-pay jobs, with high turnover and no voice at work. The Teamsters have fought hard to create and protect worker standards in the warehouse and delivery industries for more than 100 years while helping build worker power before meaningful labor laws were in place. Amazon workers are calling for safer and better working conditions and with today's resolution we are activating the full force of our union to support them.
This is being done through an initiative called the "Amazon Project". The resolution commits the union "to fully fund and support the Amazon Project, to supply all resources necessary and to ultimately create a special Amazon Division to aid Amazon workers and defend and protect the standards in our industries from the existential threat that is Amazon".
It will involve "building genuine worker power at Amazon" that "will require shop-floor militancy by Amazon workers...in addition to unquestioned solidarity from warehousing and delivery Teamsters".
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