The eyes of the trade union world are focused on Alabama as an Amazon workers’ campaign to unionise reaches a ‘crucial moment’, with the close of their recognition ballot later today (Monday 29 March).
In what’s been marked as a turning point for labour relations in the United States, workers are organising under the banner of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) to demand better working conditions and an end to worker surveillance at the Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Bessemer, a south western suburb of the city of Birmingham.
RWDSU representatives will join GMB Scotland union organisers on Wednesday evening at for a special online event, ‘Demands for a Post-COVID World of Work’, to inform and discuss the Bessemer unionisation campaign and its impact on the fight for recognition in Amazon across the world.
GMB Scotland Secretary Gary Smith said: “This is a crucial moment for workers’ rights but whatever the outcome in Bessemer this unionisation drive is a point of no return for Amazon, not just in the United States but across the world and including Scotland.
“It is a basic human need to want proper value for our work and for that work to be underpinned by basic rights and protections, and it’s why there is a reawakening of the need for unionisation to achieve it.
“The clock is ticking on the unfettered greed of billionaire disrupters and practitioners of precarious work because the COVID-19 pandemic has surfaced all the underlying exploitations that have been left unchallenged over the last decade.
“We are delighted that representatives from Alabama will be joining on us on Wednesday because the challenges facing Amazon workers in Bessemer are the same as those in Bathgate, and we need to learn from each other to make work better post-COVID.”
GMB Scotland’s Event, ‘Demands for a Post-COVID World of Work’, takes place at 7pm on Wednesday 31 March, at https://www.facebook.com/gmb.scotland