 Joining us for this panel discussion, Amazon Workers in Motion, we're going to hear from different groups of Amazon workers in different states who are trying to take on the corporate giant. We're also excited about this organizing and we're going to hear from them about what's been working, what hasn't, what kind of campaigns they're launching and how we can all be supportive to their fight. So my name is Bianca Cunningham. I am the Campaign Director for Bargaining for the Common Good, also former staff of Labor Notes, and I'll go ahead and introduce our panel. So we have Brian Brown, who's the President of Carolina, Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Cause is a worker-led movement that is committed to defending, or excuse me, yeah, defending Amazon Workers' Rights and organizing Amazonians for social and economic justice in the Carolinas and in our communities through engagement, education, and empowerment. They've been inspired by the Amazon Labor Union, Amazonians United, and RWDSU Cause. Founding members created their own grassroots union and set off a campaign to organize in a bunch of places. Raleigh Durham, Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome, Ryan. Angelica Maldonado is a 27-year-old from New York who works at the JFK 8 Amazon facility on Staten Island. They currently serve as the Interim Vice President of the Amazon Labor Union, which she joined in October 2021. She's a mom to an amazing 4-year-old and a mom and a daughter to a warehouse of 8,000 workers. Welcome, Angelica. Next we have Zama Huzichikano from rural Illinois and a co-founder of Amazonians United. It's a self-organized union of Amazon workers that has been fighting and winning concessions from Amazon through collective action in the workplace since 2019. Welcome, Zama. And finally we have Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah is a ship dock worker at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Bessemer, Alabama. They're a member of the Amazon Organizing Committee and has been working at Amazon for two years. In addition to being a student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, majoring in criminal justice, Isaiah has been a part of the organizing workplace actions on the shop floor, such as formulating petitions on major issues that people care about and wanting to be agitated around, as well as organizing a march onto human resources for the reinstatement of one of their coworkers who was unjustly fired. Welcome, Isaiah. So we all want to see wins at Amazon, but I'm sure not more than the people who work at Amazon themselves. So let's talk strategy. What is your strategy and how do you see it building shop floor power? We'll start with you, Zama. Everyone, can y'all hear me? All right, good. So my name is Zama. I've been working at Amazon in Chicago at a delivery station since 2017. I'm about to hit my five year mark, half a decade. Working working at that place has definitely taken a bit of a toll on my knees and body, but the fight I think is very important and necessary. So I guess the question is strategy. What is our strategy? Our strategy is to build from the beginning the workplace organization of workers necessary to basically create just an antagonism between workers and management and all of those who are aligned with management. This includes the shift assistants, the ambassadors and any snitches or rats that we encounter along the way. This is like it's basically like we just need to be building these worker organizations in as many workplaces as possible at Amazon. And that's how it is that we begin building some real working class power. And I think we also have to talk about like the broader context, which informs this strategy, because it's not just about building a union at Amazon that will increase our wages by a bit. That will get us some slightly better benefits, you know, that kind of thing. I think it's within a context of the fascists are coming and they're rising up. Our environment is collapsing. We're in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. It's heavy times. These are times of war and we need to act like it as a working class because war is being inflicted upon us. We are being attacked. Our communities are being attacked. Our people around us are dying. And we need to act like it because the capitalists, the rich are profiting off of our suffering and off of our misery. And so this being a time of war, I think it basically means that reform is not enough. You know, it's not about making capitalism a little bit better. It's about overthrowing capitalism. And I think then we have to ask the question of how is it that we as workers can organize ourselves to overthrow capitalism? Because we are the class in society, in capitalist society that has the historic responsibility to overthrow and destroy capitalism and create a new society that is radically different. You know, where there are no longer classes, where the things that we produce are owned by us, where we distribute, where we determine what it is that we need. And when I say we, I don't mean just us in the United States that have been hoarding all the resources, bringing everything in from all the other countries abroad so that we can live a little bit more comfy. I'm talking about us as a people in this world. So I think the question is how is it that we build our working class organizations to basically further our revolutionary potential? And so for us at Amazon, Amazonians United, that means that we have to avoid traps. We have to avoid pitfalls. One of those traps is of course reformism and included within reformism are business unions. Business unions, this is the majority of unions in the United States. Under the AFL-CIO changed to win. Basically most of the unions in the United States are business unions. They are class collaborationist entities. They distract us from the fight that we have to wage against the capitalists. And the state has also positioned itself in past laws that kind of like misguide and misdirect our energy as a working class into these business unions and into friendly relations or at least some sort of peace between workers and bosses. And I think that we need to actively avoid those traps and fight them. And so how it is that we do it at Amazon is by building this working class organization shop by shop. We are here in Chicago. We began in Chicago. We're going to continue growing in Chicago to the point where we'll be able to strike effectively all the delivery stations in the city and stop the distribution of goods. And then that is how we will actually have any sort of real bargaining power through which we can win whatever it is that we need to win. And we build out from there. Yo, what's up guys? I have to stand up. My back is hurting. I work at Amazon. And when you work there long enough, you have back pain. I represent the Carolina Amazon is united for solidarity and empowerment. We were birthed out of the racism, the discrimination, the sexism and all of the isms that we will witness each and every single day at work. And so we came together as a group and said that something had to change. We have been studying and been in conversation with ALU, our brothers and sisters from Bessemer, our Amazonian United friends. So what we've done, we have to put it in our context. So our strategic plan is that we have a three-part plan. The very first thing that we're doing is that we launch a petition. That's where we got from these brothers and sisters from AU. That petition is strategic because it creates a conversation. It makes us relevant. It allows us to engage in conversation with our co-workers. Also, it's strategic because it shows us our weaknesses and it shows us our strengths. I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. When our brothers and sisters in New York had won the historic election, we said that we can't hide in the shadows anymore. We're coming out public and we're going to ride this humongous wave that's coming from New York. Now, when we've done that, we put a QR code where individuals could scan to get in contact with us. But we found a weakness real quick. What the weakness was, we didn't have the manpower. We had over 700 people in a matter of two weeks just to respond. As of last week, we just completed that list. We had to stop operations for a moment. The next step is not just the weaknesses, it shows us our strengths. The first step is the petition. Now, when we move out of this petition, we're going to move into collecting signatures for an election. When we finish that, we plan on making history in North Carolina by becoming the first Amazon warehouse in North Carolina to vote for a union. My name is Angelica Maldonado. I'm pretty much a nervous wreck. I helped organize the warehouse in Staten Island, New York, JFK8. Thank you guys. That actually makes me pretty emotional because when I first started in 2021 October, the ALU movement was already far beyond where they accomplished a lot before I joined. When I first started joining, we were still collecting signatures. That's where I got my start. I started collecting signatures. I started speaking to our coworkers using pamphlets, using the minimal knowledge that I had. Before this, I knew nothing about the labor movement in general. That's me being transparent. I came from a mom who she was a part of 1199. I did have a union in my household. I knew how it benefited households, but I never knew how these unions actually got started. When I was approached by one of our vice presidents at the time, Connor Spence, he came up to me. I had just missed the buzz. He was telling me, hey, we're starting the union. I work at Amazon. I remember when I first started there in 2018, Amazon had promised us shuttle buses. Staten Island, New York, it's one of our five boroughs in New York. Saying that, a lot of our coworkers come from different boroughs. You have coworkers that come from Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan. They take the ferry to get to the warehouse or they drive all the way to the warehouse. One of the things Amazon promised us was shuttle buses. Years later, we never got one. The day I had missed that bus, Connor came up to me. I'm like, hell yeah, I want a union. Beyond that simple promise of a shuttle bus, us just having higher wages, having better benefits. Being personally, they take $54 out of my paycheck a week for me and my son. With a horrible payment, co-payment, and things like that. It's hard to keep up as a single mom with those kind of payments. I can only imagine what mothers who have more kids have to pay and deal with. I got started. Now that we have won our victory, I always hear the word strategy come up, right? It's so funny because when we were organizing, I never looked at anything we did as a strategy. I think what really got our coworkers going was the ALU. What made me stay as an organizer initially was anyone could promise you anything, right? Initially, it was the culture that the ALU created for their coworkers to feel comfortable outside of working eight, 10, 12-hour shifts. Those days where I wanted to come and organize, I had about 10 to 15 organizers around me who made me feel like family. We blasted music, Spanish music, hip-hop music, R&B. We ate soul food. We ate big ziti. It was kind of like college all over again. But then it was still like the respect for each other and our backgrounds and our age ranges was still implemented in how we treated each other. We weren't in the building yet organizing. We weren't allowed to be yet. I see, personally, that each and every one of us, we took that attitude from at the bus stop and then we brought it in the building. We took the pamphlets. We took our tables. We took our literature, our petitions, our sign-up sheets. We brought it in the building. We brought our Bluetooth speaker. When everyone was telling us to turn the music down, we refused because that was just one person who was the bunch that didn't want or didn't understand what we were trying to do. But the majority, they wanted to feel like they weren't at work. They wanted to feel like they were with another part of a family at work. Dedicating so much time. Me personally, I worked RTShift. I know RTShift, right? Overnight, 12-hour shifts. And I was away from my four-year-old son. And being a part of the ALU family, that's what really got me by at Amazon because I probably would have quit. And then being with the ALU family and seeing how genuine their purpose was to create a union for people who needed higher wages, who needed better medical benefits, who also needed longer break times. It was something that I was willing to dedicate myself and sacrifice a lot for. So, saying that, I would say, now looking, we did have strategies, but it was more of a genuine, what can we do for each other? And so, I mean, even in those break rooms, 12 hours at a time on my off day, we would still ask workers who didn't want to organize with us, what would you guys like to see? How can we make it more inviting, more comforting? And that was a part of our strategy, just those one-on-one conversations to up our Annie in the warehouse to make our presence known, to solidify that this is not only by-law, this is what we can do, but maybe even if it wasn't by-law, this is probably what we would have done. So, yeah, I would say I wouldn't be able to name specific strategies, but definitely building our own culture within the JFK warehouse was definitely one of our things, yeah. Hello everybody. I'm Isaiah Thomas. I hope I don't look too much like a stereotypical Alabama man with my overalls and everything. But I love talking about strategy and organizing because we are talking about the deep South. We are talking about the state of Alabama, which is antagonistic to any kind of worker organizations or any kind of collective actions. And like my sister over here says, Christina, in the South there is this mindset that you cannot challenge authority. It's like this slave mindset. And in terms of us organizing and strategizing to get people to work together, you have to overcome that. So it's another ballgame. So what we do to make people feel at home, to make people feel as if it is okay to work together, to bring about real fundamental change that will impact everyone's life is through petition formulations by making a march on the boss. If somebody is unjustly fired, you band together, you march to HR and you say this person deserves his job back. He has to pay for his bills. He has to take care of his kids. He has bills to pay. If you attack one of us, then that is an attack on all of us. And that is what the goal is to get people to think that you have to look at our situations as if they're all interconnected because we cannot individualize our own problems. We have to look at it as a systemic issue. We have to look at it as a social issue. We have to look at it as an economic issue. So I have to say in Alabama, we're not only looking for power in the workplace, but we are looking for political power as well. Because why is it the case that a majority of my coworkers live paycheck to paycheck? They live in poverty. Some of them don't even have homes. I've seen too many of my coworkers go without eating a meal on a 10 to 12 hour shift. That is bullshit. And in terms of building power, it isn't only just in this facility. We're going to show solidarity to everyone up on this stage, no matter where they are at, not only in the United States but around the world. Because we are all working class people and we should learn from one another about how we can build real power. And you know, when you're organizing and when you're strategizing you're always learning what didn't go well and what went really well. And what I realized and what I learned that was a real pivotal strategic option that we did was house visits. Meeting people where they're at in their homes and talking to them, they're more likely to open up about their issues. They're more likely to talk to you about what they want to see changed. And a lot of people, they wanted to see a better pay increase because $15 an hour is not enough. It is not enough. So to sum everything up, when you're organizing in the South, when you're trying to get collective actions, we have to fight on a multi-prong level because there is racism in the South to this day. There is sexism in the South to this day. And then you have the local government who is antagonistic to you because they don't want you to win power because if they know that you win power then there will be a working class organization in that town that will actually start working for us, for the working people instead of the rich. So I want to pick up on that note talking about what it's like to organize this union in the deep South. I know we have four different geographies represented here and so I wonder if I could just ask you all to kind of go deeper and talk about how does where you are affect your strategy? What are the conversations with your coworkers around the union and how are you talking about power where you live? Well, in Chicago, I mean, I think there's pretty high, not pretty high, but there's unions in Chicago. People are aware of unions. And I think Chicago also has a very militant tradition. Some radical shit has always come out of Chicago. There's a lot of local ones and stuff coming out of Chicago. There's been some very important convenings in Chicago. So somehow I think that militant tradition lives on. And so many of my coworkers know about unions. Many of my coworkers, I thought when I was going into Amazon that there's going to be people putting their heads down and stuff, but nah, there's a lot of people that fight. There's a lot of very, you know, people that just don't put up with shit and they don't even care if they get fired or not. They're like, nah, my respect for me comes first. I can go get another job. I don't give a fuck. I'm going to put this person where they need to be put. So I encountered that. And I was like, well, shit, it looks like there's already a lot of militancy here. It's just kind of like a little bit individualized and we just kind of like need to bring it together. And there's also, I mean, a lot of people that have already been a part of unions. And there's a lot of people that say, we need a union at Amazon. So then this is, I mean, it's a good starting point because then it's like, okay, well, what does a union mean? What kind of union do we need at Amazon? Because I think a lot of people's conception of a union or when they say we need a union at Amazon, it's like, oh, well, we need to call up the Teamsters or some other union headquarters or something like that so they can come and unionize us. And it's like, no, no, no, we got to flip that completely. We are the union. We are the ones that form the union. And so people are like, well, what does that mean? And it's like, well, it's basically just an organization of us here. It basically just means that we got to talk. Have a little meeting, talk. All right, what are the issues? And what are we going to do about the issues? How are we going to bring other coworkers along to fight against this particular issue to get the employer to meet this particular demand? And then we just do it. And then it's like in the process, we're like, yeah, this is a union. This is the best kind of union because we control it because we are it. And because we direct our activities and we deal with issues immediately as they rise up. There is no need to call somebody else to come and save us. We are the ones that can fight for ourselves. And also it allows us an opportunity to speak about how unions come to be. So for example, the question of union elections, we go into these subjects while working too. And for us, we don't need union elections, for what? Because we don't need anyone's permission to be a union. We give ourselves the permission to be a union by forming it ourselves. And so I think being in Chicago, I mean, I haven't lived in the South or in other places, but I think it gives us a really good and strong place to build up from. So being in North Carolina, the South is a very strange place. It's a very unique culture. You deal with a lot of systematic racism every day of your life. And North Carolina is the second least unionized state in our nation. We're only second to the second Carolina, South Carolina. One of the... What I realize is that what these guys do in Chicago, what this sister was able to accomplish in New York, is a different demographic. And so I'll give you this example. And I say this a lot. I would like to suggest that what MLK was able to accomplish in the South, he wouldn't be able to accomplish it in the North. He even tried it with the Poor People's Campaign in Chicago. It didn't work out. What Brother Malcolm X was able to accomplish in the North and the vances he made, he probably wouldn't be able to accomplish the same thing in the South in his 8A. So we take how the demographics plays into place. We take what we can use from ALU, what we can use from our brothers and sisters ambassador, from our AU folks, and we put it in our context. One of the challenges that we have, our folks generally don't understand the benefit of the work that we're doing that collectively. And so we can't take for granted anyone in here that just because you have this passion, you have this heart, you have to wake those folks up. You have to make them conscious. You have to make them see what is going on and how they can have a better way of life. One of the things, if I can just say this real quick, how the demographics plays with our strategy as well. Now one of the things I loved about the ALU campaign, I saw the food that they were giving. And so I grew up in a black Baptist church and if you grow up in a black church, every Sunday you get food. And regardless of what your religious or convictions are, a lot of people follow the Palestinian Jew named Jesus because he could supposedly turn water into wine and he would feed people. So food creates a great conversation and folks will follow you with food. So one of the things that we realized real quick, about a week or two weeks ago, I had about seven people in one day to come on a Friday and to just have a mental meltdown. When it got to the seventh person, I had to leave work because I was going to snap next. The last two ladies that talked to me with tears in their eyes, they just got paid on Friday. They're single parents, but they didn't have any food to get through the weekend. So what it carried to me, and I talked to our board of directors about this and the one thing that we want to implement is that you work for one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, you get paid on Friday and you have food to feed your family. So we're going to adopt a Black Panther Model of Food program where we're going to, if Jeff Bezos don't feed them and don't provide for his people, that's what we're going to do. So that's some of the strategies when it comes to specifically North Carolina. That made me emotional. I told y'all I'm a wreck. Wow. Yeah, so, I mean, as far as our demographics, wow, New York is one of the most diverse states in the East, right? And being that our warehouse employs everyone from the five boroughs, I don't know if a lot of people know anything about New York, but there's a lot of Hispanics in the Bronx. Manhattan is pretty diverse with a lot of Asian and a lot of Caucasian and African American, right? And then you have Queens, same, a lot of Hispanics and Asians. So when you have people coming from these different boroughs and they all work in one warehouse and there's about 8,000 of them, we have to find a way to connect to all our workers. And like he said, food is the way to the heart, right? I gained about like 50, 60 pounds organizing. I was eating too. But also one thing that I just heard was not only food being the way to the heart, but actually getting to know each other and me relating myself to the workers. So me, I'm a single mom to a four-year-old, an amazing four-year-old, one who has been a great support system and very patient with me throughout this whole election era. And I had to... One thing that I always had a problem with was being vulnerable. And when I started campaigning for the ALU and I became an organizer, I had to figure out, well, I'm a woman's woman, right? So one of my main things was I like to go up to the women and I like to ask them, you know, do you have kids? If it was a woman older than me, do you have grandkids? And so one of the things that I found out was that we had a lot of single parents that were women and then we had a lot of grandparents that took care of their grandchildren even when they were not work. So I had to be vulnerable. It took a while to share my story of me being a single parent, but I remember the first time I shared the story. It was a co-worker and, you know, she... I'm 27 years old. I think she was probably a bit older, probably like 40. And she's looking at me like, you're a young girl who wants to organize this union for the workplace. Like, all right, I'll see you later. And I'm like, I'm a single parent to a four-year-old. I'm not here on my off day to play games and play with anyone's head about what we need in this warehouse. I'm here sacrificing time away from my four-year-old and I'm missing quality time that can be given to him. Educate my co-workers and share knowledge about the things that we're battling within the company. And when I said that to her, she took a little pause. I think she wanted to internalize it the right way. And she looked at me and she said, you know what? I'm kind of late for my shift, but I'll come back and talk to you. And she came back the next day. And I think we had food that day, too. She came back the next day. I made her play the food, handed her our literature, and I spoke to her for probably about an hour. And I think it was her whole lunch break I spoke to her, 45 minutes. And she was telling me how she was a single mom. And she has a babysitter that she can barely rely on. And I'm telling her, well, you know what? My mom's a part of 1199. And I remember growing up, they would offer to give her vouchers for child care. And I'm like, imagine we can have that. I grew up in a household that had 11, that my mom, she was a nurse, she had 1199. And before I say that my mom was a nurse, I think one of the things that benefited me wanting to be an organizer was I seen the transition of before when my mom wasn't a nurse to when she became a nurse and how the union benefited her household. You know, being a poor black mom and not having a union to become a nurse and having a union and seeing how our pay wage, health care, paying for a camp, paying for childcare benefited and made her more happier within her household, right? So I took that same energy and knowledge and I brought it into the workplace. And from that first instance, when I opened up to one of my coworkers about being a single mom, it kind of was a domino effect after that. Every person who wanted to turn away from me and didn't want to hear me out, it was time for me to be vulnerable because our knowledge just wasn't enough. And so people do want you to relate, people do want you to be vulnerable, people do want you to connect, and that was something that I did have to learn. So as far as demographic, I would say Staten Island is populated by very wealthy Italian people, right? But it also has a huge amount of NYCHA communities, which are project communities. And so I worked with a lot of friends in Amazon. I worked with a lot of people who family of my friends. And so it was very easy for me to relate to them because before my mom became a nurse, I lived in NYCHA in the projects for many years. And I can't stress enough how being vulnerable, because we each have our own story as an organizer, right? There was 15 of us, 15 of us had our own story. It was our duty for each organizer to find that group of people, share your story with them and relate to them. And that was just really what we did with our demographics. So Jason right here, he's Hispanic. He spoke to our Hispanic people. Me, uh-huh. Me, I'm a mixed race. My mom, she's Westinia, my father's Hispanic. I don't speak Spanish, but I do still respect my culture a lot. So I would speak to both groups of people. And then we have people that are Caucasian, our African-American people, our African people, Brema, great addition to the ALU. So just utilizing each other and then everyone playing their role and knowing exactly what they can achieve with their group was how we worked with our demographics. Yeah, just to go further in terms of getting people to actually wake up and to realize that unionizing is the correct path forward to actually bring real positive change in their lives is through conversations and listening. Listening is like 90% of your organizing conversation that you have with somebody because a lot of people are going through a lot of things, a lot of factors play into how they respond to what you're asking of them. You're asking them, hey, what do you think about the pay here at Amazon or what do you think about the working conditions or what do you think about the break times? And sometimes somebody would be like, well, you know, I just had to drop my kid off today and you and yourself become like family to them because a lot of people have, you know, their own issues that they go through and they want to vent to you. And it's key that you become that therapist in a way. Like you wear many hats as an organizer. I've had people cry in front of me. I've had people have like these really deep conversations that they didn't expect to have with anybody, but they need somebody to talk to. And the moment you build that relationship with that worker is the moment that you can build trust and for them to be more comfortable with getting out of their shell and more comfortable with the idea of collective action. If you just go up to somebody and be like, you're assigned this petition, they're going to get upset with you and rightfully so because they're like, what am I signing? And I don't even know you. But if you took the time to speak with them, asked them how their day was, asked them that is there anything I can do for you to help you out because working at Amazon is backbreaking. Six people have died in our facility in less than a year. It's only been open for two years. So everybody is in danger. So another thing that we do in the facility as well as hold union meetings inside the break room to show people that there is a presence here at Amazon. Nobody is going away. The union is us, the workers, and it always will be that case. And when you put like a poster board up on the wall and it says union meeting, what would you like to see change inside the break room? You see tons of people coming up to you and be like, I'm tired of this bullshit of having to wait 10 minutes to come up my Burger King or whatever it is. And another thing that is really pivotal is showing how management just does not care about us because they do not. They may come to you and have one-on-ones with you and be like, oh, what's your favorite color? They literally do that at Amazon. They don't care. What they care about is ensuring that you do not question their authority. That's all it is. And you helping your coworker understand that management only cares about delivering on the quotas with which they were mandated from upper management who really doesn't give a shit about you either. They only care about profits. They only care about bringing about the number so that they can show to corporate that, hey, this is what's going on. And when you really get your coworker to see that, then they move. Then they start wanting to actually march on the boss with you. They want to actually go around and talk to their coworkers because you alone can't do it. When you're an organizer, you humble yourself in that way. You realize that you cannot do this alone. You find other leaders so that they can talk to people and they find other leaders so that they can talk to people and then you go back to your map and be like, look at all these connections. All you have to do is to talk to four leaders and those four leaders will talk to the other leaders and it branches off. And I believe if all of us as organizers take the time to have a sense of humility, because I'm not always right, if you humble yourself in that way, then you realize that you can practically talk to anybody no matter if they disagree with you or not, especially in the South. There are Trump supporters who work with us at Amazon and they have some backwards thinking. I mean, it's like insane and you have to figure out how are you going to get this person on board because whether we like it or not, sometimes they may be a pivotal person in a department and you're like, I have to go talk to John who does dog whistles all the time and you know it's racist and you know it's sexist or you know it's homophobic, but yet he can move people and you have to sit back and ask yourself, how are you able to get this person to push all of that other shit that they have out of the way and focus on the real issues that affect all of us? And in Bessemer, Alabama, that's what we're working on because there are some folks in our facility who think that way. And every day you have to learn what worked and what didn't work. If you don't take that time to reflect, then your strategy falls apart. So I'd say like as an organizer and I hope all of you go back to your workshops and you organize the hell out of your job, take the time to reflect and talk with your coworkers and listen to their issues. Thank you. So picking up on what you said again, I feel like we're in a good synergy here, with Isaiah. Yeah, how hard has it been to get your coworkers to step up to be organizers? And how are you overcoming those objections? Because we know the turnover is really high. The work is really, like you said, back breaking. And so I wonder if the rest of you and you can also fill in, Isaiah, can talk about what those conversations are like and what have you found to be effective in moving people. And I heard you Angelica say being vulnerable, sharing your story. But I wonder if anybody else has things to add along those lines. I think Angelica hit it. I think she got it correct. Taking the time to actually talk with your coworker and have them realize that your issues are not going to change unless you come together and actually want to address it. Because I can go up to management on my own and say, I have this issue. They're just going to pat me on the back, give me a jolly rancher and tell me to go back to work. I mean, that stuff happens. The only way that you can get your coworkers to actually want to take action is have them realize that the only way that you can make real change, whether it be that you want a pay raise or whether you want longer breaks or whether you actually want a shorter working period because we work 10 to 12 hour shifts, we have to come together to do that. You have to be willing to make sacrifices. I've made sacrifices. A lot of my other coworkers made sacrifices. You have to be willing to do that to make sure that your coworkers can see that collective action is the right way forward. Yeah, so one of... I mean, we had a warehouse full of 8,000 people at JFK8. When I started in 2021, I would say there were probably about 10 to 12 solid organizers who were a part of the ALU. By the time we were ready to cast in our votes, we probably had about 20... in the low 20s of organizers, let's say 22, it was incredibly difficult for us to get organizers. And I think the reason for that was because Amazon, they purposefully and systematically made the warehouse and the way it works, and they made it that way so it would be impossible for us to make a union. You cannot expect people who work 10 hour shifts, four days consecutive, or 12 hour shifts to come back to a warehouse. They live miles away from half the cross bridges and bodies of water to organize a warehouse of 8,000 people. It seems impossible, right? And it would seem impossible to the corporate people who don't understand the dedication that we have as folks who need what we're fighting for. And so it was extremely hard to get people to come and organize with us because a lot of them did have second jobs. We were fighting for a pay raise that we were not guaranteeing, but we were promising to fight for once we got to the bargaining contract. However, they didn't have the time to fight. A lot of people who work at our facility were immigrants who worked second and third jobs, and they sent money back to their families who lived in other countries. And so a lot of them, not only did they not want to risk losing their job because if they lost their job, that means their family would lose funds and things like that, but they didn't want to... It was just too much work for them. Some of them were door dashers. Some of them were lift drivers. I met someone who was a vet tech and worked at Amazon. I forget where from Africa, but he was African and he sent back money to his family back home and he did all this so gracefully, but what he didn't have time to do was fight for union. And so, not only is it hard to get an organizer to organize for your warehouse, sometimes it's hard to keep an organizer. The company, what they do is they instill fair when someone starts organizing, they target them, they give them extra write-ups, they may fire a friend, they, you know, they might try to say, hey, we want to cross train you today and then they're scared to say no because who wants to go from pack to pick? No one wants to do that, but no one wants to say no to a company that provides for their family. Pack and pick is our department at Amazon. If you guys don't know, it's ridiculous. I would say, I was recruited because someone seen what my, well, Connor, Connor seen exactly how I was in distress at the moment. And my distress was, I missed the city bus that probably won't come for another hour and a half and I'm sure he knew and I knew that that was something Amazon once promised us with transportation. So not only did he pitch me to support the union and sign a card so we can possibly vote one day, but he invited me to our bonfire and collectively all the organizers there that day gave me, welcomed me and said, not only do you, not only can you vote when the time comes, but if you want, you can organize for us. I decided to organize because of the great people that I worked with and what we were fighting for. So one of the aspects of, when it comes to overcoming objections, I get a lot of those what was interesting, a lot of the people I get objections from, I look up in a week or two, they're not even there anymore. So I don't try to, my feelings don't get hurt if you tell me no. I had a lady about a week argue that boy I said, what boy? You're the one that's going around with the petition, they're going to fire you, that's illegal, they're going to put you in jail. So I tried to educate her, take the time, but I already knew that that mindset that I couldn't get to her in any way possible. So I just wasn't going to waste my time talking to her. The other thing, Azeel had mentioned some of the Donald Trump supporters. What I like to do with those type of folks, those are folks that I grew up with, I grew up with some good old country rednecks and and so and so one of the things I do with them, well Trump doesn't like so I used some of his talking points to get support and it works and how this system is talking about one of the things too, I'm going to be quiet, in our process we're trying to identify rank and foul leaders. There's a lot of supporters out there but we're trying to identify rank and foul leaders like a lot of the individuals in this room. It's interesting on this journey that a lot of the people who you may think is going to be that rock, they fill us out real quick and then the other individuals who you think that may not do so well they're some of your strongest rank and foul people. Now one of the things specifically in the south I was telling my Alabama sources this yesterday that I personally and what our group looks at is some old school black women that go to a black church and so let me explain why. We have a sister Mary Hill and she has no fear in her and one thing about those old school black women that's a part of those black churches they already have organizing skills because the black church experience is all about organizing and they can reach also those other young people and when you look at any movement that's in the south you always see the men may get the credit but there's some black women or some black women that are a part of that movement who's making it go forward. I think what my fellow workers here have said is pretty spot on. What I'll add is that I think through going through struggle people get more politicized and end up deciding no this is my fight this is what I need to do I can't I started this fight and I'm going to finish this fight that's what I've heard from some of those fellow coworkers that have turned into you know rock solid organizers and you know it's tough to begin I think the beginning part is the most difficult one because you gotta be going around you're looking who your coworkers are you're building relationships you're getting a feel for who's who you're looking at like alright who who talks to people who's social and you know sometimes the people that end up being leaders and the organizers aren't even that social you know sometimes they end up being pretty quiet and then all of a sudden you know ask them hey you want to come to this meeting yeah oh shit for real you know and then you got like a petition you're doing a petition and you know they're like ah you know they might be a little bit too quiet to you know to be going around asking other coworkers but nah they get over that they get over that fear that quietness because they believe that this is right that this is what we need to do you know and then let's say we finish the petition and we turn it in and you know we had a meeting before that and we decide you know who's gonna turn the petition in you know at the work site and let's say they volunteer or the group proposes that they do and they do and they go and turn in that petition and then the boss disrespects them you know especially in those moments if we can support our fellow coworkers that are dealing with this shit and with this disrespect that's a moment where people get even more committed to the fight you know because then it's like hey nah hell nah they just disrespected me I'm not backing down I'm moving forward so I think those are some of the building community of course as they mentioned is also extremely important it's gotta feel like a family food definitely essential having pot looks very good meeting up outside of work having picnics or barbecues you know those kinds of things just building that feeling of community is so vital because under this in our society people sometimes end up being very individualized and kind of feeling alone and kind of feeling like they don't really got too much community apart from family and sometimes family is not really the community that they want to be in so I think part of building our union and getting people to become very committed includes I think all of those aspects okay so I want to pivot here and I'm gonna ask a two part question I want to ask you to name some of the concrete things that you're fighting for right now what are the issues or the wins that you're trying to get in each of your shops and then I want to ask how the company has affected those so is the company coming at you and have they affected your organizing efforts to get those wins we can start wherever but Isaiah you got to use this mic a couple of the main things that we actually really want to see changed right now in our facility is that it's too damn hot inside the building another thing another thing is TOT which stands for time off task that shit is ridiculous I mean they're constantly tracking how long it takes you to scan one package to another they're tracking how long it takes you to get to the bathroom and back they're even tracking how long you have a conversation with your other coworkers which is insane and the third thing that we want to see changed is the pay everybody wants a better pay rate at our facility and how the company is responding to that right now they're sort of flustered because of how our election process is right now which is like in this gray area so they're like how do I respond to these worker actions right so for example the heat they're saying that oh we're going to address this issue but you haven't even turned on the AC it's still hot as hell in there the other thing in terms of time off task they're now starting to terminate people or write people up and that adds to the turnover rate which is like over 150% so you have to have an active ground game while you're inside that facility make sure you know who your leaders are make sure that they're talking with your other coworkers to ensure that they don't rack up too much TOT because they will get rid of you like that and so we have to take action on so that management will get rid of TOT I believe it should be done with because why do you have to surveil us 24-7 why do you have to watch us all the time we are doing our work what the hell else are we going to do so why why do you have to watch us constantly and so these are the things that we definitely want to see changed in our facility right now it needs to be cooler inside the facility TOT needs to be gotten rid of and thirdly we want a better pay to ensure that none of us are living in poverty yeah so one of the things that we're fighting for now which is besides what we'll be fighting for once we are at the table bargaining for our contract is for us to be recognized by Amazon by Jeff Bezos by Andy Jassy by the whole corporate recognize the Amazon labor union um yeah on March 25th through the 30th thousands of our coworkers went outside to the tent that the NLRB made and constructed for us to safely and anonymously cast our votes um we won by about more than 500 votes and Amazon has brought on these false objections about 25 of them to ensure that what the workers have loaded on doesn't happen yeah during our election well during our campaigning um Amazon they sent out a whole bunch of these vote no text messages and vote no emails had a whole bunch of posters in the building like um literature plastered on the wall on the TVs before they used to play sports and music videos and sitcoms now they were literature on the TV saying why they didn't need a union what they should spend their money on which they would have if they invested in their 401k that they barely matched and um when we won it was like our coworkers had hope they were like of course we all want a union of course this is what we wanted but how did 10 to 15 of you guys make this happen how did you guys do this so um one thing I would say besides recognizing the ALU the bargaining contract um the bargaining table to get a contract I would say um of course a higher wage right but one of the things I love to say is what is a higher pay if you can't keep the job you can make you could come into the company and start off a $30 an hour but in two weeks you'll get fired for not making rate so job security is something I advocate for um also one of the things we're fighting for right now working with Jessica Ramos um is we're trying to pass a bill to put it into product put it into productivity so basically like in LA there will be no rates for the Amazon workers in New York City and then another thing that I I would like to say that um we'll be working on once we get to that bargaining table is um basically because our facility because we work um in a in a um warehouse where we pack items and ship items and it's not like um a sorting center um we have to work about 10 to 12 hour shifts now of course those shifts they do pay the bills for the people that work there but we should be having longer breaks there's no reason why I mean I'm 27 I could deal with it right let's just say but there's no reason why we have older people people that are handicapped people who need certain accommodations not getting longer breaks it's unacceptable um and and that's just for now so right now we're fighting to be recognized but once we have um you know these calls and then we'll have a lot of things going on and a lot of more time to speak to our coworkers for the new ones that are coming in and then um for if anything really has changed within the warehouse that we all need to focus on but I would say those are the top three things and for us to be recognized I don't know about your facilities but at RDU-1 in Garner, North Carolina Amazon or the RDU-1 there there's three or four different types of individuals minorities women of any color disabled workers and older individuals most of the time you're not going to have a fighting chance for promotion at RDU-1 if you fall into one of those categories so one of the things that we're fighting on I shared this in this sister session this morning we're trying to get rid of a racist manager and we're demanding his termination now I'm not one of these black folks who say that a white brother or sister is racist because something didn't go my way or I didn't get a promotion but living in the south you know racism and you know a racist when you see it no matter how they try to hide it you know it so one particular day this racist guy I'm talking about where he's trying to send me upstairs to pick I don't have the permissions and then I don't want to go to that hell hole anyway so he follows me like upstairs we get up there and he says to me the young lady has to be a little young white girl you're a badge so I can get your login I said no I said I don't want to be up here and I don't have the permissions to be up here and then so this guy jumps on me oh so you're not going to comply you're not going to comply I said man do you hear what you're saying to me learn a word from this sister coded racism do you hear what you're saying to me you can't find another synonym in your limited vocabulary other than comply dude I did not know that we were at Central Prison in Raleigh I was an inmate and you my CO can I see your badge man then he said well I'm not saying that I'm not saying that you just making her feel uncomfortable I said I'll be there man so you leave one racist undertone one racist coded word and so now you're making me be the angry black guy that the little pretty white girls afraid of so I says so I says to the to the young lady and how we said in Johnson County I said shook are you afraid of me she says no sir I said man get the hell out of my face so we're trying to get him terminated in the department that I work in and listen to me well now all managers at Amazon are not bad we had a manager that was a white sister but she failed into two categories she was a woman and she was older she built our department so what happened was that they forced her to quit and so what we done her last day coming back from lunch we threw her a two hour party we stopped everything we played I was the DJ we had birthday cake and we dance and it wasn't nothing they could do about it but it didn't stop right there this is what we demanded and listen to me very well there's nothing wrong with white boys I love them love my white brothers but listen to me very well we went to the GM and said we don't want to see any more white boys on this floor we have too many and they don't reflect our department so what we're demanding is that you either give us a woman or a minority and so what they done they came back and they gave us both because we and so what we were suggesting that we're in Raleigh North Carolina and this leadership that you have none of it reflects the diversity that's in this building and we want people that look like us in leadership when we go to HR we want people who we can relate to as well and so living in Raleigh you have the oldest HBCU in the south man you can go find some people that look like us that are black and brown and so that's what we demanded and that's what they gave us now how has Amazon reacted to all of this so when we went public the first thing they done they sent in all their regional people walking around in suits the next week they dropped like 100 people that's supposed to be quote unquote managers that are in training and every day at work I feel like I'm in the Truman Show with Jim Carrey I walk around hey Ryan hey how do you know my name so they had a young man to come and want to talk to me no I don't want to have a conversation with you then they got they start sending some very attractive young ladies to talk to me well no I don't want to talk to you then they sent a boy all the way from Alabama and like my Christian grandma would say the Holy Spirit told me that he was the same guy that was in ALU trying to pit the white folk against the black folk and using racist stereotypes on those brothers and sisters I mean I really want to well how do you know my name man well everybody on the floor talks about no they don't I've never seen you on this floor man you're not going to talk to me no when I was a little boy my mom and daddy taught me not to talk to strangers and you're a stranger sir so we've had many fights over the years and we've had many victories we began our organization was at DCH 1 the first delivery station in Chicago was fighting for just basic thing water we didn't have access to clean regular clean access to water we made the that's the reason we got together we talked we were like you know what this is going to be the first thing that we can do something about that we're going to do a petition about we're going to gather our coworkers signatures on this thing and then we're going to turn it in we got the shift assistant to go by water and bring it back to us from the super store for within two hours after that the site lead came in and installed water lines from there people became more interested coworkers became more interested in who we were and what we were doing so we had another meeting and we talked about more issues we came up with another petition the summer was very hot we didn't have air conditioning air conditioning was on that petition we weren't getting enough pay we were demanding more pay we got those petition signatures once again we were more of us this time and we escalated our action and we took over the manager's office and turned that petition in after that I think was the shitty manager she wasn't a manager she was a shift assistant she was disrespecting everyone on the dock because she was treating it as if it was her little kingdom so we didn't have too many supporters from the dock so we were like you know what it would be very strategic to get these folks from the dock to unite with us and the best way let's go after this shitty little manager we went after her next thing you know she was gone for a week and when she came back she had a completely different attitude she was being nice all of a sudden after that our next big fight was for paytime off we saw on the owner's manual that we were supposed to be getting paytime off and we weren't so we started a petition about that this was a petition that we started in many sites three sites in the United States and we initiated campaigns and this time we grew from not only being on the overnight shift which I was on but also on the day shift petition signatures from co-workers in all those shifts we turned it in I think then that's one like the pandemic next thing you know Amazon says hey PTO for everyone and this is for us in the delivery I think the fulfillment center workers already had paytime off but we did not that was also a nice little victory that we had and we got hit by the pandemic that fucked us up we went on safety strike four times that helped us grow our organization also put some fire on Amazon's ass to start providing us with the necessary safety equipment to lower the volume so that we're not so crowded in there and then next thing you know they're closing our facility they're diminishing the volume in our facility and they close it they split us up into the different facilities organizing committee is split up into different facilities they're attempting to destroy our union what do we do we need to continue organizing and this split into the different facilities also came with a change in hours so now it was from now it's from 1.20 a.m. to 11.50 a.m. which is very difficult for mothers or for people that take care of their children or elderly parents or people that have another job or have other jobs so we started petition about that to get schedule accommodations and to increase the overnight shift differential before it used to be 50 cents after we started this petition organized a walk out on one of those new sites within like six months of it opening next thing you know overnight shift differential increases by a dollar to one dollar and 50 cents or two dollars if you're working the weekend and we continued we continued building because now you know we're at these new sites we're working these long shitty hours and look at our pay it sucks you can't live off this damn pay so you know we also found out that Amazon had given a pay raise to another facility nearby and also Target had opened up a distribution center in Chicago that was starting pay like at 22 bucks an hour so we were like why the hell are we at 15 bucks an hour when this other site is now starting on my 18 bucks an hour and Target's over here starting on my 22 bucks an hour that doesn't make any damn sense so we began yet another campaign you know and we gathered the people once again of course throughout this whole time you have to be identifying who are the potentials who are the people that you can invite bring into a meeting form a plan and then execute on that plan so we began that process in two different sites at the site where I was at you know I had less people that were from my original organizing committee there so we basically had to reform a new organizing committee and we did and Amazon ended up fucking up because they promised us double time pay for Thanksgiving and then once we looked at our paychecks we were like where's our double time pay they were like oh no it's only time and a half what the fuck what you mean time and a half exactly you said double time pay we have the paper right here they said all no it was a mistake we're talking about time and a half plus eight hours of holiday pay equals two times pay no it's not done bullshit us so come like towards the end of the shift where it's like picking stage where people kind of free floating we just came up with a quick little plan a we need to go and approach HR and the managers here about where's our where's our damn money and if there's something people are willing to fight over is their damn money especially if they've been promised it so you know at that moment it was a different like it wasn't only the people that we had brought together to a meeting to talk about like let's do this campaign for a pay raise it was all the people that were like where's my damn money we basically this is still during the work time gather people it started like maybe a little group of three or four of us managers had already gotten a hint that we were going to do something so they were trying to distract me and some others but it would you know when it came time to do something I was like hey let's go forget this manager don't even look at him and the manager sitting there just powerless you know just like I don't know what to do we start walking and we start yelling out come on we're going to go talk to HR about our money next thing you know people first are nervous but once the little group grows a little bit you know it grows a little bit more people get more curious what's going on people feel more comfortable because there's a lot of people doing it and next thing you know we're like rolling 30 35 deep and we're confronting this manager and all of a sudden the manager's talking to us different now they're nervous you know now they're not talking down to us now they're like oh yeah we're going to look into this issue I'm sorry there must have been some sort of miscommunication no what miscommunication is right here you're bullshitting us right now there was no miscommunication oh I'll make a phone call real quick these kinds of things are what transform like the environment at the workplace and after we did that that little action on the managers over the our missing pay the manager weren't even able to get us back to work you know and they didn't even try you know they kind of half-heartedly tried but like they weren't able to we just kind of stood around talking about how we're pissed and from that little action like new people arose that like co-workers that were like hell yeah I'm about this let's try and do this let's try and get that money let's try and get that increase in pay and these are the people that like ultimately were the ones that were leading the campaign for our increase in pay we were demanding five dollars an hour at our site our co-workers at the other Chicago land site were demanding also a raise we basically just did a petition secretly and then we said hey you know what we're not just going to deliver the petition this time we're gonna back it up with basically our labor power you know if they don't accept this if they disrespect us by not accepting the petition or refusing to discuss it with us then we're gonna walk out and that's what we did you know at my site it came like 4 30 a.m and we had already formed our plan like we created a little map of the facility we said alright we're gonna gather at this point at this time and then from there we're gonna walk in this direction and we're gonna be gathering other co-workers and we already know it's gonna be this many of us and that's good enough and then we're gonna go into the break room and then once we're in the break room we're gonna get the managers to come they're already gonna come to us and then we're gonna confront them and that's what we did and we were in there basically battling it out with these fools for like an hour and then once we realized that they were bullshitting us that's when we walked out our co-workers at the other site in Chicago also walked out on that same day messed up their production after that it was real funny because the site lead came to us crying but they were fake tears because I could see him we were there gathering and he was trying to be like oh I spend more time with you all than I do with my family and my wife and it's hard for me too and corporates breathing down my neck and please I know that you all need to punch me but please just don't punch me so hard you know a little tear rolling down his cheek and every time you don't deserve to cry in front of us you don't know struggle you got a fancy car you got a fancy house you have no idea what struggle means you're completely disconnected from it so don't come at us with this bullshit and a month later we won our raise we won $2 increase in pay and not only did we win a raise we also got that site lead the fuck out of our warehouse and on the day on the last day he approached me and this happened many times as well you know he approached me with his fist up like trying to fist bump me and I just look at him I'm like I'm not doing that he said why why not I'm like shit you're not my friend he's like oh I'm your enemy I'm like yes you are you're a manager of course you are and he says well I just wanted to come and tell you you know I'm I'm a what did he say I'm a victim of the war I'm a casualty I'm a casualty of war I was like what do you mean he says well you know how those people in the Middle East have died from drone strikes and their families when there's a wedding their casualty is a war that's how I am you're comparing yourself to victims of Obama's drones this is ridiculous and basically I mean I didn't fist bump him and I went around telling everyone and we were celebrating that he was going to leave and that he was gone and the next thing you know he was gone and that transforms the environment because then people see if we fight then we can win we do win and then it's just a matter of like okay let's concretize our organization because like you know we did do a walk out it was very strong it was very powerful the confrontation with the management was very militant but it wasn't everybody and we need everybody or at least we need as many people as we can to seriously impact production and so then the question is how do we do that we need to become more organized and how do we become more organized these are the questions that we are wrestling with in the process we also have to fight against the retaliation we have to put the rats and the snitches in their place and we definitely do ostracize them you know we told everybody knows who they are it's pretty funny but I think like now our main fight they fired one of our coworkers a good friend of mine Michael Johnson he's one of the leaders of amazonians united chicago land and they accused him of some cartoonish shit like they said that he took a hammer to the conveyor belt to sabotage it and that he grabbed the jiffy and stuffed it into the conveyor belt to sabotage it and that he put himself and coworkers at danger these complete lies and once again it was a racist manager that concocting these lies they couldn't even get the maintenance to back them up in these lies but they do it because they're just attacking and so since they're always going to be attacking we always have to be defending not only defending but attacking back and so you know there's many fights that are going to continue coming up the important thing is having that workplace organization and you know what are these fights going to be I mean some of it we all mentioned very important break time our breaks are too damn short at my site it seems like we've kind of just taken it into our own hands and extended our own break time by just going back late but I mean we also need more PTO why does our PTO stop accruing at the middle of the year what the hell we work the whole damn year we need more upt because people are getting fire over not being able to come to work because people have two or three jobs it's hard so you know as we build our organization we develop more demands and we continue escalating the fight further so we're about to open it up for questions from you the audience and so while you're thinking about your questions I see hands going up already I want to just ask my last question which is you know we have Amazonians united we have Amazon Labor Union we have a number of formations here how do you all relate to one another is there a space where you all are sharing best practices or supporting one another anybody feel free to answer that well well firstly it looks like we all hit right here at the table would be considered a minority and right now I guess in 2022 this is the last thing people would have expected 50 60 years ago so I think for us to fight for our rights collectively and low income people and being here flying out with different people of different unions supporting us and we're supporting them in solidarity I think first and foremost solidarity is what we all share yeah I'd like to add that we're all workers we're all people and we need to view each other as that and we need to come together to do whatever is necessary to improve all of our lives and in terms of is there a space for us to actually come together and strategize and all of that well labor notes not to be captain obvious but labor notes sorry I was just going to suggest that I genuinely do believe in my heart that we are living in a defining moment in history the one thing that all of us have in common we have troop on our side no matter what the machine of Amazon says we know the truth Mohandas Gandhi said truth crushed toward the earth shall rise and I believe that when it's all said and done that the historical narrative when the historians pick up their pens history will not be kind to Amazon but for those of us that are in here right now history will be kind history will show that we spoke truth to injustice and our ancestors was on our side history was on our side and we shall rise in victory okay so I saw a hand in the back my name is Joel Vansel and I'm with organized workers for labor solidarity out of Seattle Washington and I just wanted to ask a couple of questions first of all how can community organizations we're a multi-union multi-racial multi-generate we are a multi-usional multi-generational group out of Seattle Washington and I'm just wondering how can community organizations contribute to this work and help with it I know you all don't need help with leadership you have that in spades but how can we provide assistance how can the community come in for you and then my other question is I hear you all collaborating and that's wonderful what are the prospects for a nationwide and international strike yeah that's a very good question so as far as how everyone can contribute right now I don't want to speak for everyone here but with the ALU right now we are going through our hearing with our objections and it's five days a week Monday through Friday and I'm not too sure if you guys were in the conference yesterday but if everyone can find the link on Tuesday on the Amazon Labor Union either Twitter or Instagram join the Zoom and show the NLRB that in Arizona because that's where they transferred our case to show them that we do have the support and this is what the workers wanted if everyone could just join that call we'll be super grateful for that the last call about a hundred people joined but we're all in solidarity and I mean we could do better than a hundred and as far as international strike nationwide strike I know we are supposed to be having our nationwide call by the ALU that's something that we're personally doing and I think that can bring us together for a second time after labor notes right and we can talk together collectively on the things that we need to do in working in unison to make something like that happen okay so yeah I mean I think everyone thinks about the general strike and international strike we need to be realistic and begin where we're at we need to first to do a strike at one facility and a strong strike that actually stops the distribution of goods from there I think we need to be able to do a strike of a city of a particular market I think that we need to be have goals that we can achieve and then just keep on moving up in terms of working together to do this I mean I guess one thing that perhaps needs to be emphasized a little bit is we have different strategies here it's a different strategy to be pursuing an election and then a recognition and then a contract from what we're doing which is just building the workplace organization from the beginning engaging in collective action and kind of spreading this seed of resistance throughout so I think that there are different moments and abilities where we can work together on common campaigns or things like that but that doesn't mean that we're going to be merging into the same like organization or just have like a high level of unity and communication each of us in our respective places and in our respective struggles need to continue building that up and gaining the strength the working class organization necessary to take effective and strong action in terms of like community support it's a little bit difficult but I think it's like whenever it is that we do engage in these workplace actions like knockouts etc having people there during our safety strikes we had people doing a car caravan around the facility and that stopped the delivery vans from being able to come out that is strong but what else can people in the community do I mean if you're really energized and you really want to like build working class organization that fights if you really want to do something about capitalism potentially revolutionary forces you know why don't you get a job at Amazon why don't you get a job at Amazon and begin building up that organization we need more people that are fighters to be fighting where it matters cause we've been blessed to have the support from an organization called the Southern Workers Assembly if it wasn't for those guys we wouldn't have made it as far as we made along this journey and they've allowed us to network with other progressive organizations that's in the community the one thing I'd like to suggest if you are in North Carolina the brother who asked that consider donating to our food drive so we can help feed these people who can't afford food and the one way that the community could help as well this is just my suggestion to the organizations that don't support the working class and put in individuals who have our best interests in mind Hi, my name is Autumn I'm an organizer and president of the Rhode Island coalition of labor union women we in Rhode Island just broke ground on a new Amazon distributorship in Johnston which is currently the first union built distributorship it's going to be 1500 people but now the question is how do we fill it with union workers so I work for an outside organization I'm wondering what sort of from the ground up resources can we provide so we can start at the very beginning when they start employing people there thank you, take that one well I guess just if you can send your people in there you know more if you see like alright what's from who is Amazon going to be hiring maybe start talking with these people and basically we just need people to be going in with the mindset of we're going to organize we're not just going to be there working we're going to organize we're going to come together with our coworkers and we intend on fighting we intend on making things better that can be very difficult but it's good if the effort can be made I definitely agree I think like salting is the best way forward I mean you have to like send people in get people hired into the facility okay hello everybody this is Anas he's a worker from Germany from Amazon Germany and so I'm so he would talk in German and I would just translate for him he doesn't have a question he just wants to bring to bring you solidarity greetings from all colleagues from Germany and all best wishes for your fights in the future so he knows every problem you mentioned in the last hour and his colleagues also know these problems and they fought against it and they gained improvements together and there's a German saying the saying goes the German saying the German saying the German saying the German saying the saying goes who's gonna fight may lose but who will not fight has lost already and so he wishes you all the power you need to fight your struggles and he has some gifts for you some shirts from the German service sector union alright we have time for one more question before we wrap up I was just wondering what you all think about the chance for a workers party I know you were talking especially about building political power in the south but from where I see it I see the democratic party as being hostile to workers power and workers organization I'm from Seattle and I know there that we successfully taxed Amazon for the first time but that it took an independent socialist on the city council to drag every single democrat along with them and so I'm just wondering if not only in terms of building a new political party through our union building but whether you think we should stop the funding of millions of dollars to corporate democrats who from our unions right and I know these are for ALU it's a new union but this goes for established unions that we really need to get democrats or money away from democrats and put those towards strike funds I wonder what you all think about that thank you in Seattle yeah I'd say apps are fucking losing there has to be a real workers candidate who actually is of the working class and actually represents working class people and their issues I alluded to the fact about the southern workers assembly when this concludes I'd like to introduce you to one of my friends who I traveled here with and a mentor a part of the southern workers assembly is gathering all of these organizations these assemblies and putting power into the hands of workers but also we attended an organizing school a while back and a part of that organizing school those of us who attended we developed our own political program of what that would look like if we made that a reality of a workers party so there's a lot of information that we can actually share with you and I look forward to having this conversation alright well thank you folks this is all we have time for make some noise for our panelists thank you so much for joining us and solidarity to each of you