On this edition of Parallax Views, Amazon has come under scrutiny lately for its working conditions and also due to effort of Amazon workers to unionize in Bessemer, Alabama where 1 in 4 residents live in poverty. Jacobin staff writer Alex Press is a journalist who has been on the labor movement beat for some time, and joins us on this edition of the program to discuss her reporting on struggles between Amazon and its workers. Among the topics we cover in this conversation:
– How Alex became involved in covering the labor movement as her beat
– Amazon worker Jennifer Bates testimony about Amazon warehouse working conditions given at the Senate Budget Committee presided by Bernie Sanders
– The grotesque story of Amazon workers having to urinate in bottles and Amazon PR’s denialist response to it
– Misconceptions and stereotypes about union organizing; the stereotypes of unions as being all about Jimmy Hoffa characters or something out of the popular TV show The Sopranos; black union organizing
– Sara Nelson, the Flight Attentdant labor leader whom Alex recently interviewed
– The vote for a workers union at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama
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