When Amazon worker Magda Malinowska spoke out about a coworker’s death at a warehouse in Poland, Amazon fired her. Now a court has ruled that Amazon committed illegal union busting. Malinowska tells Jacobin why Amazon is so afraid of its workers organizing.
I wish it was simple as people quitting and others not applying for jobs at Amazon. Without major government help, there’s no way to defeat Amazon’s slave labour. Yes unions can form, but will that ultimately make a difference? I hope so, I really do. I grew up in the era of miners’ striking and picket lines in the uk, and I really wish Amazon workers could strike under a union and retain their jobs, with no payback from the company. It sounds like Amazon will happily punish anyone with more punishing work or less work at will. Sickening.
Well yeah. Agencies keep pushing people in. “Unskilled” people are getting a job there easily. That’s the whole system.
Unions lost power over the last decade. That why people need to stand together more and more. If it’s enough, it will hurt.
Yes, they will definitely, ultimately make a big difference. Join, support unions!
The question may be essentially a red herring of whether help is given by the government.
Governments help workers not by their own accord, but because workers struggle to develop power against the state-capital power duopoly that structures our society.
Unions develop such power for workers.
Labor advances not by being helped by government, but by developing power separate from government, for workers.