Boycott Amazon!

Are you ready for some good news?

I’m not kidding. This is good stuff.

Last week an independent employees labor group — not affiliated with any large national union — won a surprising victory in its effort to form a union at Amazon’s gigantic warehouse on Staten Island. This marked the first time any Amazon employees anywhere have successfully voted to unionize.

The victorious employees prevailed, 2,654 to 2,131, despite hardball pressure exerted by Amazon on its employees to vote “No.” Workers were compelled to attend repeated “training” sessions or what employees call “captive audience” meetings during which Amazon managers warned about the supposedly dire consequences of forming a union.

Maybe one of those consequences means you won’t have to get permission from your boss to go to the bathroom.

Amazon’s anti-union propaganda effort began when the pandemic hit in March 2020. Christian Smalls, an employee at the Staten Island warehouse, became alarmed when he encountered another employee who was obviously sick. After company officials rejected his pleas that the warehouse be temporarily closed, he led a walkout over the poor safety conditions.

Guess what happened to Christian Smalls? Amazon fired him — for “violating social distancing guidelines.”

But Smalls didn’t go away. He worked with those still employed at the plant to form the Amazon Labor Union. They began the hard work of mounting an organizing drive that would lead to the historic vote.

Amazon targeted Smalls, who is Black, with a racially-tinged characterization. A leaked email from Amazon’s general counsel David Zapolsky said of Smalls: “He’s not smart or articulate.” This backfired when employees learned what Zapolsky had written.

Smalls spent long hours outside the warehouse gates, feeding employees as they came and went. Amazon responded by having him arrested; company officials claimed he was trespassing while delivering food.

What’s it like working at Amazon? Employees report strict quotas that keep them hustling hour after hour. One of the Staten Island employees told the New York Times: “I went to the bathroom and had two managers hunting me down. I feel like we’re in the Twilight Zone.”

Sometimes Amazon employees have to resort to urinating in bottles because they’re not often permitted to go to the bathroom.

This is why I hate Amazon. This is why I refuse to buy products sold by Amazon and why I worked so hard to cancel my Amazon Prime membership.

I have no idea how that charge ever got started. I sure didn’t knowingly sign up for it. But I began to notice monthly Amazon charges on my credit card bills and annual membership fee of about $100. Long phone sessions finally got them off my back. (I don’t watch Amazon movies either.)

If I want to buy a book I go to independent bookstores such as R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, Breakwater Books in Guilford or Atticus Bookstore-Cafe in New Haven. If I want to buy a record album or CD I go to Exile on Main Street in Branford. I want to support such places because if we don’t, we’ll be left with only big bad Amazon and no brick and mortar stores.

I realize I’m a member of a minority group in not patronizing Amazon. I also realize I’m spending more money by not using Amazon. I’m lucky I can afford to do this. But some of you out there can probably afford it too.

Those ubiquitous Amazon delivery vans and trucks are more and more a part of our landscape. They’re all over our highways and neighborhoods. Last week on my street I saw one of those “Prime” vehicles with this message on its side: “Warning: contents will make you happy.” Cute.

The struggle by those Amazon workers to unionize reminds me of the long effort we at the New Haven Register went through in the late 1970s. The Jackson family was paying us such paltry wages that the organizing effort to join the Newspaper Guild actually resulted in a vote in favor of the union. But the Jacksons appealed it on a technicality, renewed their anti-union campaign, featuring whispered promises to double our salaries if we voted “No” in the second election (an illegal tactic) and the union was narrowly defeated. Never again has there been an attempt by New Haven Register employees to form a labor union. We got the pay raises at that time but few worker’s rights and pathetic pay increases for decades afterward.

That’s why I’m worried about what will happen to the Amazon workers on Staten Island. Company leaders says they are “evaluating our options.” You can bet they’re got plenty of ideas up their sleeves and are willing to spend gobs of money to defeat the union.

But no matter what happens next at that warehouse, I will continue to boycott Amazon.