On Wednesday, June 14, PAME held an event with union leaders of Athens and the AMAZON Labor Union President, Chris Smalls and Vice President, Derrick Palmer.
As part of their visit to Athens, Chris Smalls, president, and Derrick Palmer, vice president of the Amazon Labor Union, spoke at the PAME event under the theme “Organizing the struggle of workers in every country, in every workplace”.
Taking the podium, Chris Smalls did not fail to express his condolences for the tragic losses of refugees and workers, noting that these are part of the losses that the working class is counting. These incidents “remind me why we made the decision we made three years ago”, he commented, and unravelled the thread of the effort that led to the establishment of a union in AMAZON.
The starting point was the need to protect the health, safety and lives of workers in the conditions of the pandemic. “Three years ago I was not a trade unionist. I was not an activist, nor an organiser (…). Three years ago, if someone told me that I would stand here and talk to you, I would have thought he was crazy,” he said. And today he is president of a union representing 8,300 workers.
As he explained, the steps and victories they have achieved are not the end but the beginning of the struggle. The company is a behemoth and it is estimated that in the next few years 1 in 4 workers in the US will work or have worked for it. “We are not only facing the company, we have the government, the police,” he pointed out.
“By building international solidarity we will win,” he said, adding that no amount of money, such as the exorbitant funds that Amazon has mobilized, can defeat the power of workers when they are united.
“Look to your left, look to your right. And with all your might shout: I got you,” he concluded, to loud applause.
The transformation of the pandemic into a turning point for collective organising was highlighted by Derrick Palmer. Specifically, in 2020 about 8,000 workers found themselves working in a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, without the slightest measure of protection, side by side, with colleagues infected with the coronavirus and the employer taking no action. “I realized that Amazon didn’t care about me and I decided to take a stand,” he explained. In fact, the company’s response to their intervention demanding action was to fire Chris Smalls!
“It’s not enough just to fight at Amazon, it will take all workers to fight,” he noted.
The details of the employer’s “crusade” against the trade union caused a sensation. As the unionists reported, in one year Amazon spent $14.2 million to finance union busting actions. It hired specialized companies, organized 3,300 hours of “seminars” against unionism, filled the place with posters, fought a real battle to slander the Union. Against all this, the strength of solidarity, trust and unity emerged, which gave flesh and blood to collective action and trade union organisation.
On behalf of PAME, the President of Telecom-IT Union of Athens, Alekos Perrakis, noted
“The struggle you have fought against one of the biggest monopolies in the world has given courage and strength to the working class in Greece,” he said, addressing the two trade unionists. “It has been proven in practice that workers and peoples have the power to overturn everything. We have been following all the developments, from the press reports. Your visit here enables us to strengthen our relationship. To learn even more about the problems and difficulties, the obstacles you are facing in order for the union to grow, to stand on its feet, to step forward and demand a Collective Agreement with rights for workers. With our event today, which is attended by representatives from dozens of unions and workers from many sectors, we pledge that we will do everything in our power to express the solidarity of the working class in Greece in the great effort you are making. We send together to Amazon our own message: We are the ones who produce the wealth, we have the power”
And here in Greece, the workers did not give up, they came forward and demanded,”. Workers in “e-food” against flexible labor relations, the struggle of construction workers that led to the signing of a Collective Labor Agreement with increases in wages of 35%, the struggle of the dockers for wage increases and measures to protect their health and safety against the Chinese monopoly of COSCO, the fight of the workers in the shipbuilding industry for health and safety measures, so that their colleagues are not killed and injured every few days. Also the unprecedented mass demonstrations that took place last March, following the deadly train crash-crime on the railways that claimed the lives of 57 people.
“The society in which we live, the way it works, puts as its main and main criterion the profits of the big monopoly groups, which are produced by us, the workers, regardless of gender, ethnicity, colour or any other division that the bosses themselves try to impose,” he underlined and added: “And from today’s event we are shouting that it is time to put our lives before their profits”
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Amazon Labor Union also met with Unions of Public Hospital Evangelismos and Cosco dockers
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Video Doctors https://youtu.be/sTbITFNKG8E