We Must Stand in Solidarity With the Amazon Workers Organizing for a Union

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

05 February 21

mazon is quietly forcing warehouse workers to sign up for brutal, 10-hour graveyard shifts known as “megacycles” or risk losing their jobs. Management at a Chicago warehouse gave workers two weeks’ notice that their warehouse was being shut down, and that workers could either sign up for megacycle shifts that run from 1:20am to 11:50am at a new warehouse or lose their jobs. The Chicago warehouse being shut down is one of the best-organized in the country, and has seen a surge in worker activism during the pandemic that has successfully changed Amazon’s nationwide policies in warehouses.

There is no bottom to Amazon’s cruel anti-worker exploitation. More than half of Amazon’s last-mile delivery network has already been transitioned to the brutal megacycle format. How are parents supposed to work this shift? Workers caring for elderly family members? Workers who rely on public transportation? In addition to being inflexible, the 10 hours of the megacycle shift take a brutal toll on workers and increase the risk for workplace injuries, which is already high in Amazon warehouses. A megacycle worker summed it up: “Jeff Bezos doesn’t just own your time at work; he owns your entire weekend that you’re in bed recovering so you can go back to the warehouse.”

This is why we must stand in solidarity with the Amazon workers organizing for a union in Bessemer, Alabama. Amazon has been busting unions, quashing labor activism, and exploiting workers for far too long. A successful union in Alabama will set the stage for Amazon workers across the country to organize and fight back against Amazon’s exploitation.