An Interview with a Local Amazon Worker
The Editors of The Class Struggle Chronicle
7/29/2024
Not long ago, Walmart carried the reputation of being one of the most exploitative and abusive employers in the United States. Over the past decade, most would agree that Amazon has taken that spot (though, that does not equate to any bettering of conditions for workers at Walmart, of course). From frequent workplace injuries to stifling heat, from drivers using bottles for restrooms to horrific union-busting, the corporate giant, Amazon, has rightly earned its anti-worker reputation.
Founded in April 2021, the then-independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU) organized the Staten Island Amazon warehouse, JKF8, under the leadership of Chris Smalls. The union was recognized by the National Labor Relations Board in April 2022, marking the first major victory for Labor against the international corporate behemoth. Just recently, in June 2024, ALU members voted to affiliate with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
The editors of The Class Struggle Chronicle had the opportunity to interview a worker at a local Amazon location. Due to the highly sophisticated and especially repressive union-busting tactics of the company, this worker has decided to remain anonymous. The Louisville Workers Brigade and The Class Struggle Chronicle are very grateful for this worker’s bravery and honesty in giving us a glimpse into the culture of an Amazon workplace here in Louisville and we wish the workers all the best in their quest for better pay and working conditions, a democratic voice in their industry, and the respect they deserve as laborers.
The Class Struggle Chronicle: What is your job at Amazon? What does your job entail? What are some unique obstacles that workers in your position face?
Amazon Worker: I work at a delivery station in Louisville. My job varies depending on the needs of the warehouse on a given day, but generally I am assigned to work either in front of the conveyor belt, pulling designated packages off the line and placing them on racks behind me, or as a stower, taking packages off said racks and putting them in their corresponding bin. The primary obstacle faced by folks assigned to these positions is physical exhaustion. Even as I write this, my left shoulder and forearm ache as a result of my shifts this week. And I’m not the only one; all the coworkers I speak to face fatigue and physical pain in equal measure. Aching backs, feet that feel like they’re gonna fall off by the end of the shift, wrists, elbows, and knees that bear the weight and become more worn out by the day, etc.
What are the typical workplace conditions of workers at Amazon? What are the hours like? How manually intensive is the work? What do breaks look like? What is the attitude of the workers to their workplace conditions?
In one word: horrible. I work from 1:20 am to 11:50 am, as do the vast majority of my coworkers. Our task as a facility consists of unloading huge box trucks and sorting the packages into the routes that will be run by Amazon drivers in the morning. We are expected to hit a certain rate of packages processed per minute while stowing; not meeting these benchmarks is a sure way to get reprimanded or even written up by the boss. At our facility the maximum weight of the packages we process is 50 pounds, but you will surely feel what it means to lug around large boxes (what we call oversized packages, or “OVs”) time and time again over the course of the night. We get three breaks over the course of our shift: two paid 15 minute breaks and one unpaid 30 minute lunch period. Amazon insists that our 15 minute breaks start the second we lay down our hands on the line and stop working, they consider the time we spend walking to the break room to count as our break time. Conversely, managers will also come in two or three minutes before our break is slated to end to begin exhorting us to go back to the floor, because again, by Amazon’s calculation our break ends when we resume our work, not when we walk out of the break room. This results in our “15 minute breaks” really being closer to 10 minutes if you factor in the walk to and from the floor. Everyone I work with hates everything enumerated above. Our cramped breaks, the pace and physical intensity of the work, all of it.
How do managers interact with the workers? How do they enforce the bosses' will? How do workers deal with management?
The relationship between management and workers is extremely rocky. To start with, most management positions are filled by people with college degrees who haven’t done actual, physical warehouse work a day in their lives. This creates a massive gap between what their theoretical understanding of Amazon’s benchmarks and expectations are, and what our lived experience tells us is actually possible. This is the source of most of the tension present in our facility. Management pushes us to our limit, those brave enough to say something will demand that something change, and management will shrug their shoulders or nod with a plastic smile on their face before proceeding without changing a thing. Their justification is that these are system-wide standards of work, and therefore out of their hands. It’s transparently bullshit. Another major source of tension is that not a single manager speaks a lick of Spanish at our facility, in spite of the fact that easily upwards of 60% of their employees are Spanish-speaking migrant workers. When talking to my Latine coworkers, this is a massive source of frustration, because it means they feel they cannot make themselves heard.
What are some of the biggest grievances that the workers have? How do workers address these issues? How do they feel when these issues don’t get resolved?
As mentioned above, our breaks are a significant grievance. The lack of Spanish-speaking administrative staff is also very frustrating. On the shop floor itself, there is a long-lasting desire for positions to be rotated and for more people to be cross-trained to different roles. A huge challenge inherent to working at an Amazon warehouse is the monotony of the work. Technically our managers are expected to rotate workers around to different positions day by day; this would break up the monotony and help keep things fresh instead of staring down the conveyor belt week after week. In practice this rotation does not happen. People are only trained as necessary when vacancies arise at the different work areas that folks desire to be trained in: dock, OTR, problem solve. This results in a hand-selected group of people getting to do the more sought-after tasks in the warehouse, while everyone else is stuck. All of these things are raised on our VOA (voice of the associate) board, where employees can write down grievances or suggestions that are then responded to by a manager. All that comes out of expressing these frustrations on the VOA board are broad platitudes from management about how they appreciate the input and will look into it. Once again, nothing changes. The outcome is workers are pissed that their work situation never changes and they feel powerless to make a change.
How do workers feel about the idea of organizing a union? What concerns, fears, and skepticisms bar them from organizing a union? How do they view the Amazon Labor Union's successes and failures? What are their thoughts on unionized workplaces, such as UPS?
In general, when I reach the point in my relationship with a coworker where I feel able to raise the idea of a union, the response has been basically universally positive. There is sometimes apprehension due to ignorance on certain issues, or fear about retaliation, but attitudes towards the idea of a union are pretty much good. There is not very much consciousness regarding the ALU struggle, but when I raise that success with people it does bring a smile to their face more often than not. The knowledge that such a thing is possible has immense power. When talking about unionized workplaces, and in particular UPS, those who have worked there before will sometimes be more lukewarm on the idea of unionization. In some of their experiences, the unions operating in their workplace did not have a significant presence in their lives. Former UPS workers also cite the lack of full-time positions at the company as a frustration that drove them to work at Amazon.
What are some obstacles to organizing a union at Amazon? Why should workers at Amazon organize a union? What can a union provide to the workers of Amazon?
The most evident obstacle to unionization at Amazon is Amazon’s robust union-busting capabilities. The fear of these tactics being brought to our facility has led our union to do this work mostly clandestinely until a time comes when we have a critical mass of our coworkers on our side. It’s why I’m writing this testimony anonymously. Another obstacle is the language divide, it hinders our ability to speak with each other outside of our self-selected linguistic/ethnic/cultural groups and creates easy avenues for the company to divide us along those lines. In spite of these obstacles, we need the union because it is the only institution that can possibly fight back against the ever-encroaching greed of the company, who would strip us of every ounce of human dignity if it meant bigger profit margins. A union at Amazon would mean being able to fight for industry-standard wages, robust benefits we couldn’t even dream of currently, an end to at-will employment, entitlement to the presence of a union representative during disciplinary actions; in short it would mean the reconquest of much of the dignity that Amazon has already successfully pilfered from us.
What do you want to say to workers at Amazon and to unorganized workers everywhere who may be too terrified or skeptical to organize a union?
The truth is that this struggle is going to be extremely difficult, it’s uphill all the way and there are plenty of stumbling blocks between us and victory. But nothing worth winning was ever easy. There was a time where doing this kind of organizing could have gotten you beaten or lynched or jailed. We have the privilege of working at a time where none of that will fly anymore. Where the weekend is a guarantee, where our working conditions are mandated by regulatory agencies (even if Amazon seems intent on violating labor law every time it gets the chance), where our weekly hours are capped. None of these things would be true were it not for regular people standing up in the millions at their respective places of work and demanding that these things be put into place. We have the chance to lay down another paving stone on the path to a better future for ourselves and for our kids, and thankfully we have a whole fighting history that proves we can do it. We must do it.
Any Amazon workers—or any workers in general—are invited to contact The Louisville Workers Brigade if you are interested in organizing your workplace. We will be happy to provide consultation and to connect you with like-minded coworkers and/or local union organizers. contact@louworkersbrigade.org
If you’re interested in platforming your workplace grievances in The Class Struggle Chronicle, please reach out to us! As with this article, we are happy to publish your story anonymously. csc@louworkersbrigade.org
Solidarity Forever!