Staten Island, NY, January 1—Amazon workers at JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island and drivers at the DBK4 facility in Queens went on strike to fight for a contract on Friday, December 20th 2024 at midnight. PL’ers went out to support the strike on the picket lines before it started (see letters on page 6).The strike lasted for five days.
In 2022, JFK8 workers won the first union election in this country against Amazon. Organizers spent almost a year and hours and hours of their own time to win the election. Out of approximately 8,325 eligible voters, 4,785 votes were counted. There were 2,654 votes in favor of unionizing and 2,131 votes against it (CNN Business). Amazon appealed the election to the NLRB and lost. Amazon has refused to even start negotiations on a contract.
Amazon has even filed a lawsuit to declare the National Labor Relations Board unconstitutional which would affect all union workers in the United States. While this fightback is inspiring, workers at Amazon and beyond need more than reforms; they need to help lead the working class to a communist revolution under the Progressive Labor Party (PLP)! The fight is not over!
When capitalists attack,workers strike back!
Workers at Amazon still face forced mandatory overtime, being pushed to meet impossible quotas, and risking life altering injuries. Amazon has almost twice the accident rate for warehouse workers as other U.S. warehouses.
Jeff Bezos, the head of Amazon, is now one of the richest capitalists in the world. Amazon and all other companies need to profit from their workers labor. Amazon has made huge profits in the last few years: 15 billion dollars in the previous quarter.
Leaders in the Amazon Labor Union issued the following statement: "On 12/26, Amazon workers returned to work. They returned having inspired hundreds more workers to join them in their fight, bringing their struggle for union recognition and a contract to international attention, instilling fear into the hearts of Bezos and other evil capitalists, and building solidarity with all of you community supporters across movements who showed up strong to support our comrades and show Amazon that New York will not stand for the abuse & disposal of our community members."
Under capitalism, labor power is a commodity. Workers cease to be human to the capitalists; they are treated as things. Capitalist exploitation exploits all workers by profiting from their labor. Only an international communist Party can organize workers to act together across national boundaries. Only an international communist Party can enable the working class to defend itself against the capitalists, let alone defeat them (from Political Economy: A communist critique of the wage system at www.plp.org).
We in the PLP recognize that both sides of the ruling class, the liberal fascist Democrats and the open fascist Republicans are the same. The capitalist rulers use divide and conquer to control the working class. Racism, sexism, nationalism and anti-immigrant attitudes are used to divide workers and weaken their ability to fight back against the bosses.
Amazon workers stand against racism
This Amazon strike is a blow against racism and sexism, as 32 percent of Amazon’s frontline workers are Black and 27 percent are Latin, with one out of six being Black women. All Amazon workers and their supporters must stand together. Amazon workers are going on strike for safe working conditions. adequate sick time, pay increases, and job security.
The U.S. ruling class is in crisis. The U.S. is no longer the biggest industrial power in the world and must rely on its military. The U.S. is losing economically to state capitalist China. International competition of the big capitalists is resulting in more imperialist sponsored wars in Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, the Sudan, and Ethiopia among other places. The Democratic and Republican parties directly support and arm these wars including the genocidal war in Palestine.
Progressive Labor Party organizes to overthrow this rotten system, the source of all our ills. We are building a movement to win a communist future, a society in which workers will control our own fates to make sure that we all get what we need for safe and healthy lives.
In the long run, we believe winning a contract will not be enough. As long as the bosses hold state power, anything won by workers can be taken back, as has happened in the past. The only permanent solution to workers’ problems is a communist revolution. PLP will fight alongside Amazon workers to try to win this strike and help them see the need to take the next step and fight for workers’ power.
