The first, filed against Amazon’s staffing vendor Integrity Staffing Solutions, alleges that it illegally retaliated against a worker who organizers say had been mobilizing co-workers for the March strike and was terminated as he was about to walk off the job to participate. Workers filed a pair of complaints last week with the National Labor Relations Board. Workers are also pressing their case to the federal government, claiming their activism earlier this year was illegally punished. Muse said he expects more than 100 workers to strike. “We see that our fights are stronger together," said Abdirahman Muse, executive director of the Awood Center, the worker advocacy group spearheading the Minnesota activism, whose backers include the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, and the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It’s the latest example of tech employees with very different jobs trying to forge common cause in the hopes their bosses find their demands harder to ignore. “We’re both fighting for a livable future," said Seattle software engineer Weston Fribley, one of several employees from the group Amazon Employees For Climate Justice who will be making the trip. In an effort to show solidarity, a handful of Amazon’s white collar-engineers intend to fly to Minnesota to join the demonstration, where activists will demand the company take action against climate change as well as easing quotas and making more temps permanent employees. In the afternoon, workers also plan to rally outside the facility, located about 25 miles from Minneapolis. On July 15, employees at the Shakopee facility plan to strike about three hours at the end of the day shift and for about three hours at the start of the night shift. In March, workers staged a three-hour strike. In a letter last year to the National Labor Relations Board that was reported by The Verge, an attorney for Amazon said that hundreds of employees at one Baltimore facility were terminated within about a year for failing to meet productivity rates. These include relaxing pressure on workers to meet quotas during Ramadan and the designation of a conference room as a prayer space.īut they say the company has failed to meet worker demands such as converting more temps to Amazon employees and permanently easing productivity quotas they allege make the jobs unsafe and insecure. Organizers say the actions led to talks between employees and management last fall and spurred some modest changes. They also circulated flyers at a nearby fulfillment center urging co-workers to wear blue shirts and hijabs in support of the same cause. Last year workers thronged the entryway of a delivery center chanting “Yes we can" in Somali and English, presenting management with demands such as reduced workloads while fasting for Ramadan. Of late, warehouses in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region have become an epicenter of worker activism, led by East African Muslim immigrants who organizers say compose the majority of the five facilities’ staff. The pledge to pay $15 an hour didn’t happen until the company had weathered attacks from politicians such as presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who proposed a “Stop BEZOS" act that would have imposed a tax on companies like Amazon to make up for the cost of government benefits like Medicaid for their employees. Critics say it benefits from tax breaks to build warehouses but pays workers so little that some are forced to seek government assistance for basic needs like food and health care. About 250 union pilots who haul packages for Amazon and DHL Worldwide Express staged a brief strike in the leadup to Thanksgiving in 2016 before a federal judge ordered them back to work, eliminating any disruptions during the peak holiday shopping season.Īs one of the world’s most valuable companies - led by Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest person - Amazon has become a symbol of income inequality. Until now, Amazon’s US workers haven’t walked off the job during key sales days. In Europe, where unions are stronger, Amazon workers routinely strike during big shopping events like Prime Day and Black Friday. Amazon, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the planned strike.
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