The Amazon Labor Union victory at the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island was historic, but right now, as we speak, Amazon is currently in court trying to throw out the results of that election, and pro-union worker-organizers keep getting fired. One of those workers is Alicia Johnson, who, as Luigi Morris writes, is "a 56-year-old Black immigrant who lives in the deep Bronx and worked at JFK8 as a Picker Packer. Her commute to work took more than two and a half hours." After Alicia exercised her right to request accommodation from Amazon that would allow her to keep working with an injured leg, along with providing the necessary medical paperwork, she was fired in a suspected act of retaliation. We talk to Alicia about her time working at Amazon, why she supports the union, and about the Kafkaesque nightmare she's faced trying to secure the unemployment benefits she's entitled to.
Additional links/info below...
- GoFundMe: ALU Member Alicia Johnson, Fired in Retaliation
- Luigi Morris, Left Voice, "Amazon Won’t Stop Union Busting and Firing Organizers"
- Alex Press, Jacobin, "Amazon Is Trying to Destroy Its Staten Island Union by Firing Union Supporters"
- Andrea Hsu, NPR, "Inside the Marathon Zoom Call Where Amazon Seeks to Overturn Historic Union Victory"
- Working People, "Amazon Labor Union"
- Amazon Labor Union website, Facebook page, Twitter page, and Instagram
Permanent links below...
- Working People Patreon page
- Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
- Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
- Jules Taylor, "Working People Theme Song