Friend,

Never underestimate the power of the American worker. We’ve been standing with the Staten Island Amazon Labor union since the early days, going back to when it was just a few workers handing out flyers at a bus stop. But this is still the beginning of this story: last year, Staten Island amazon workers unionized despite intense pressure from Bezos’s corporate goons.

Predictably, Amazon corporate is now refusing to sit down with their own workers, refusing to acknowledge the union that fought so hard for the ability to exist. American workers have an inalienable right to unionize! Tell amazon: you are nothing without labor. Sit down with your own union, and begin the process of creating working conditions that work for everyone.

Chris Smalls and his fellow workers weren’t just organizing their colleagues. They were also feeding them, protecting them, and engaging in actual solidarity¹. Labor is not some disinterested political question: it is the question of real people with real lives refusing to be exploited by the trillion dollar corporations that are in the active process of destroying this world for profit. Amazon headquarters needs to know: respecting your workers is the absolute bare minimum when it comes to corporate decency.

Tell Jeff Bezos that his workers made him a billionaire. Amazon needs to listen to those workers, respect their collective power, and honor the union that already exists!

Jocelyn Macurdy Keatts
Washington Director, act.tv

1. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/02/1090353185/amazon-union-chris-smalls-organizer-staten-island