Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice mailing list
Jan. 26, 2025
Some Observations about the Christmas Amazon Strike
by Tim Hall,
Detroit Workers' Voice
Full text at
https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-250126.html. Excerpts follow:
There are widely different views in the capitalist mass media and among big capitalists like Amazon, among the labor bureaucrats and on the left about the recent Amazon strike. The analysis one gives about this strike or set of strikes tells a lot about the stance of people and groups towards the workers' movement, how its present condition is regarded and what role one sees for the labor bureaucracy.
To begin with, whether these were strikes at all is at issue. Of course, Amazon itself claims there were no strikes over Christmas this year at all. In its view, nearly everybody involved … were all … “outsiders,” people who do not work at Amazon. According to Amazon, there were simply no strikes.
Among others opinions varied widely.
The Teamsters Union itself,
Democracy Now (the latter of the reformist left), other left groups and much of the capitalist mass media hailed a glorious strike of “thousands” of workers. In the view of all these, this was the greatest strike ever at Amazon, which is a low bar to exceed, since there had only been a few tiny attempts to strike before now in Amazon's short history. (1,2) … The fact is that at none of the nine strike targets was there a clear-cut, fairly large number of actual Amazon workers on strike. …
Let's look at some of the particulars.
The Teamsters threw a pretty large number of members, retirees and low-level officials onto the picket lines at both striking and non-striking facilities. … No evidence of multiples of “thousands” of striking Amazon workers was recorded photographically, even if one totals all nine Amazon work sites where strikes were actually called. This is not to denounce any Teamster workers who came out in support Amazon workers who wanted to see a strike; those numbers actually helped the movement; but we are trying here to define the number of actual strikers. …
We have to look at some more serious observers from the left. One was Joe Allen, a longtime labor activist writing in
Truthout, who put the term strike into quotation marks when writing about these events and stated that the number of workers from Amazon actually on strike was so small that the actions were “publicity strikes” (which some call “spectacle strikes”).
Another left publication,
In These Times, saw that the number of real strikers was indeed small, but said that the amount of package-flow that Amazon workers were able to cut off or disrupt in the processing of the strike-claimed plants was significant enough that these events should be called strikes.
Why did
In These Times see these actions as strikes?
For one thing, even though the processing of packages was only partially disrupted, it definitely happened. … the striking workers themselves could see the actual cut in processing that they were causing; they knew it was real and word spread widely about it. …
There is another factor. These strikes and the support protests (whose size was unprecedented at Amazon) have been reported by many to have given the workers a feeling of power, of strength as a workforce. If the strikes had been entirely ineffective, this sentiment would not have been very powerful or long-lasting, but workers report the opposite; they report an upsurge in interest and confidence in striking and organizing
In addition, there is the matter of growth. Some of the strikers and some of the non-strikers at the big workforces at the nine facilities had struck or seen protests and strike attempts last year. This year's campaign represented a big growth, a big expansion of struggle over last year, though still very small.. This, too, has given the workers a psychological and tactical boost
Tempest, another left journal, gives a brief but convincing picture of enough worker mobilization as to create a sort of an embryo of worker power. …
So where does this lead? … The local president of the Amazon Labor Union at Staten Island, Conor Spence, says (Democracy Now) that the Amazon unionization movement now has more than 20 other worksites where over 30% (he says more than 50%) of each workforce has submitted union cards, and these workforces are now ready to hold elections to decide for or against unionization. With this amount of card signatures labor law requires unionization elections. Amazon is illegally refusing to call such elections. …
What to do next? Some might say, just push for the elections. That is certainly necessary and it is a weak point for Amazon, but one that may soon be eliminated when Trump (as he plans to do) re-organizes the NLRB …
But this workforce has many young people who are responsive to the left and who think of their movement as essentially a strike movement. They get excited about actual struggle on the shop floor. Tactics must be found for these activists to use, to actively attack management while supporting and spreading the demand for elections. The workforces can get creative with on-the-job actions; such things as mass work-to-rule nd even small agit-prop theater techniques can raise spirits and expose and hinder management, while avoiding getting fired
The campaign also exposes problems that will arise with the Teamster labor bureaucracy.
One is, who decides and plans further actions? The Teamsters have created an organizational division within the union for Amazon workers. The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at Staten Island is apparently the only union member of it. … Amazon worker activists should consider forms of communication and organization horizontally among their various worksites, some of which are not under the control of the Teamster bureaucrats, just as a start to self-organization. At one such site, in Garner, North Carolina, where the CAUSE organization (Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment) has submitted sufficient union cards to require an election, CAUSE has said it wants to remain independent of major unions.
It may seem to some that the Teamsters themselves will provide responsive leadership, but the past history of labor bureaucracy suggests the contrary. <>