By Christy Hoffman
GENEVA – Black Friday has become more than a shopping spree. Relabeled Make Amazon Pay Day by labor advocates, it increasingly marks an annual season of resistance. As millions of consumers flood to Amazon’s digital aisles, a growing force of workers and their allies are taking to the streets to challenge the e-commerce behemoth’s efforts to reshape the world in its own image.
Our message is clear: Amazon needs to be held accountable not just for its union busting, but for the broader threat the company poses to democratic values. In the United States, where Donald Trump is now on his way back to the Oval Office, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently made a choice that speaks volumes. By blocking The Washington Post, the paper he owns, from endorsing Kamala Harris, he showed that his priority is to safeguard his businesses’ lucrative federal contracts, rather than to use his influence to defend democracy.
Bezos claims that “Americans don’t trust the media.” But his decision only deepens that mistrust, lending credence to the idea that even respected institutions are up for sale to the highest bidder. We now know that even when democracy is on the line, Bezos will put his financial interests first.
Nor does this disregard for democratic norms stop in the halls of power. The International Trade Union Confederation lists Amazon among the world’s top “corporate underminers of democracy,” citing its support of far-right causes, its anti-competitive practices, and its disdain for its employees’ rights. Amazon lobbyists were recently banned from the European Parliament after repeatedly dodging public hearings, and we now know that the tech giant underreported its EU lobbying efforts by millions of euros. The pattern of abuse also extends to Amazon’s warehouses, where the company has spent $14 million on efforts to prevent workers from unionizing.
This is a worldwide practice for Amazon. A spokesperson for the UNIFOR union in Canada says that “the sheer scale of [Amazon’s] brazen attempts to intimidate employees” sets its union-busting efforts apart from other employers. Germany’s ver.di union has spent a decade pushing Amazon to honor the country’s standard collective-bargaining agreement. In the United Kingdom, Coventry workers face intense anti-union pressure, with the GMB union describing Amazon’s interference as “out of control.” And in Alabama, federal authorities invalidated a vote by Amazon employees against unionization on the grounds that they had been subjected to a campaign of disinformation and intimidation.
Rather than addressing serious issues and respecting their workers’ right to collective bargaining, Amazon has tried to undermine labor-protection laws more broadly. In response to a Teamster organizing drive, the company is arguing in court that union-busting is a constitutional right. It is also challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board, which has overseen US labor laws for almost 90 years.
These audacious efforts are not just legal maneuvers. They are attacks on the fundamental rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively with their employers, and fight for safer, fairer workplaces. If Amazon’s strategy succeeds, it will serve as a globally applicable playbook for the company’s assault on organized labor.
Amazon’s hostility toward unions is part of the company’s DNA. Amazon has always exerted obsessive control over its workforce and wielded political influence to weaken labor protections for all. Its multibillion-dollar hoard of cash allows it to influence policies at all levels, effectively establishing a political economy of, by, and for corporate giants, rather than the people.
Workers around the world have been organizing to resist these abuses of corporate power, with more Amazon warehouse workers and drivers joining the fight daily. In India, they are organizing against inhumane working conditions in extreme heat, with support from the Amazon India Workers Association and UNI Global Union. As a result, Amazon has had to address management and safety failures. Similarly, workers at Amazon Web Services in Belgium, and at Amazon’s European headquarters in Luxembourg, are demanding better working conditions and job security; and European regulators are scrutinizing the company’s safety practices.
In the UK, Parliament is debating an employee rights bill that would, among other things, make union recognition easier and retaliation against union leaders more difficult. And in the US, several states – including California, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and New York – have passed warehouse protection laws aimed directly at Amazon’s brutal productivity requirements.
Such regulatory responses are crucial; but without strong unions to enforce existing protections and serve as watchdogs, Amazon’s model of control will persist. As Amazon workers use the occasion of Black Friday to demand fair treatment, we should recognize what is at stake for democracy itself. If Amazon’s unchecked power and tactics become the norm, we will be ushering in a world where multinational corporations’ interests take precedence over our rights and freedoms – and over the institutions that are supposed to protect them.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024.