From The Bronx to Bessemer, Essential Workers Fight Back

Originally posted here.

Essential workers have been risking their lives stacking boxes, driving trucks, ringing doorbells and delivering necessities for millions of Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic. Hundreds of workers in retail, meat processing and supply chain have died and tens of thousands have been sickened by the virus. Recent events from The Bronx, New York to Bessemer, Alabama illustrate that supply chain workers are standing up in solidarity and demanding to be better compensated and treated with dignity.

On January 17, over 1,400 workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market in The Bronx went on strike at the massive facility which handles over 300,000 pounds of produce daily. The strike attracted national attention when Bronx-14 Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez showed up in solidarity wearing Timberlands and bearing Café Bustelo. Rep Ocasio-Cortez rallied the workers, many of whom live in her district, "When you're standing on this line, you're not just asking for $1, you are asking for transformational change for your lives, over the lives of every food worker across this country, for kids or food workers across the country," Ocasio-Cortez said,  "Because there's a lot of things upside down right now in our economy. And one of those things [...] is the fact that a person who is helping get the food to your table cannot feed their own kid. That's upside down.” The efforts look like they have paid off, with workers voting on a settlement that will meet their demands.

Throughout the pandemic, as tens of thousands of supply chain workers were infected and hundreds died, wildcat strikes and walk-offs were tactics workers used in meat processing, retail, and manufacturing to protest unsafe working conditions, low pay and lack of safety precautions across the country. Whole Foods workers staged sickouts in stores across the country and Buzzfeed printed an internal company email from Whole Worker, calling for collective bargaining, hazard pay, paid sick leave, mask mandates for customers and other relevant demands. 

And on February 8th, nearly 6,000 employees at an AmazonAMZN fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, will started the process of voting on whether or not they will form a union. This process will be the culmination of an employee organizing campaign with the RWDSU union, which kicked off when employees notified the National Labor Relations Board on November 20, 2020 that they wanted to hold an election to create a bargaining unit for workers in the facility.

Amazon workers have been organizing for years to gain better conditions at their facilities. Under the umbrella of Amazonians United, employees have organized in a number of facilities across the country, including Sacramento, Chicago and Queens. Others won prayer hours at a facility in Minnesota staffed heavily by Somali Muslims, a campaign that gave rise to the national Athena coalition. And the high-profile firing of Amazon manager and whistleblower Chris Smalls led to extensive public protests and the formation of The Congress of Essential Workers.

Throughout the pandemic, the union representing over 1.3 million supply chain workers, the UFCW, has been a consistent champion for all essential workers, partnering up with Senator Bernie Sanders to write an open letter to retail CEO’s, and has scored real wins for their membership, lending credibility to the need for labor organizing:

·      In October, UFCW announced a new hazard pay agreement for 56,000 Stop & Shop workers across New England, New York, and New Jersey.

·      Grocery cooperative ShopRite agreed to a COVID-19 hazard pay deal to retroactively compensate nearly 50,000 union workers for work over the summer, an idea that has gained some high level traction. 

·      18,000 union workers represented by UFCW and the Teamsters at Stater Brothers grocery stores and warehouses had $2 per hour hazard pay reinstated.

·      A UFCW local in Northern California has negotiated one of the country’s most comprehensive safety agreements with Safeway, including paid breaks for workers to wash hands, adequate supply of cleaning products in stores, increased staffing, payment to employees who are required to self-isolate due to COVID-19 infection and financial assistance with child care costs.

The real-world, material gains that UFCW and the Teamsters have won for their members are consistent with how unionization benefits frontline workers. And the expansion of unionization across market sectors tends to lift the boats of all workers, even if they are not unionized. According to a 2017 study by the Economic Policy Institute:

• Union workers earn more. On average, a worker covered by a union contract earns 13.2 percent more in wages than a peer with similar education, occupation, and experience in a nonunionized workplace in the same sector.

• When union density is high, nonunion workers benefit from higher wages.

• As an economic sector becomes more unionized, nonunion employers pay more to retain qualified workers and norms of higher pay and better conditions become standard.

• Unions reduce inequality and are essential for low- and middle-wage workers’ ability to obtain a fair share of economic growth

• Union wage boosts are largest for low-wage workers, larger for black and Hispanic/Latin workers than for white workers, and larger for those with lower levels of education

• Unions help raise women’s pay and help close wage gaps for Black and Latin workers.

These last two point are especially compelling given the food industry’s reckoning on diversity and equity issues in the wake of Black Lives Matter. If unions continue to demonstrate their potential to right the ship on wealth gaps and inequality, they will expand their reach and bargaining power in a diverse workforce.

And keep in mind that the House of Representatives already passed the PRO Act (Protect the Right to Organizing Act) back in February of 2020, which would expand collective bargaining and give workers more rights during disputes.

Longtime labor supporter Senator Elizabeth Warren recently said that if you don’t have a seat at the table, then you’re probably on the menu. The essential workers who mask up, clock in, stack and deliver millions of packages for consumers daily during the Covid-19 pandemic have undoubtedly earned that seat.