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No More Military Cargo for Israel Through Our Airports!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdkSAVkrYoL9Q7_PHcNvQt6dYaoFYpiztfSCMgpvkzm5wyVQw/viewform
No More Military Cargo for Israel Through Our Airports!
Civilian airports are in danger due to the shipments of arms, …ammunition, and military cargo through our travel nodes.
Shipping weapons on our planes is dangerous – in May, a shipment of 14 tons of a highly explosive TNT equivalent to the Israeli military through a cargo terminal at JFK Airport put the lives of thousands of workers and community members at risk.
Since January 2025, at least 280 military cargo shipments to Israel have departed from Oakland Airport (see the full report at www.armsembargonow.com/report).
On August 7, 2025, United Airlines shipped over two tonnes of military parts to Israel on a passenger flight (see https://www.ontheditch.com/united-airlines-illegally-transported/).
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, having received $300 billion in assistance from American taxpayers. That money could be better spent helping people here at home. Israel has killed over 84,000 people in Gaza directly including over 13,000 children, and has indirectly killed over 104,000 people through its blockades on food aid. The hospitals, schools, water systems, and agriculture built by Gaza's workers have been destroyed by Israel's continued
We are joining the majority of people across the country who believe that we should stop sending military aid to Israel.
*The information you provide will not be publicly shared.*
They were among military cargo overwhelmingly funded by the US government.
www.ontheditch.comLabor For Palestine At 2026 Labor Notes Conference
Who's Paying Who? IBT Election Officer Rules IBT SOB Illegally Taking Employer $ For Union Podcast
https://www.ipm.org/news/2026-06-09/iu-east-set-to-launch-public-charter-school-local-superintendent-raises-concerns?fbclid=IwY2xjawSYJGZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeceyvsds0z2B-dh4vG68khLp8qcZvxF8k0ZpuDAhHmxMhZGJqgsZnZpHS3-w_aem_saGISioBxxoFRlJyxWTY3A
Indiana University East High School will launch this fall.
www.ipm.org…https://newschunks.com/state/california/sacramento/sacramento-teacher-sues-district-over-discrimination-claim/?utm_source=sacramento-ca&utm_medium=NB&utm_campaign=news&utm_term=Education&utm_content=1006565019198706&fbclid=IwY2xjawSYI_ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFIZjhGZnpRVU1lbVRvbTVEc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHpx2rYmhcle9efnC4asP4Q8ZOuj7XYc33zsxyPPg3JaRanJ4-5me_vYHjHgD_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw
In a serious legal battle unfolding in Sacramento, former kindergarten teacher Lanisha Barney has filed a lawsuit against the Sacramento City Unified…
newschunks.comWho's Paying Who? IBT Election Officer Rules IBT SOB Illegally Taking Employer $ For Union Podcast
https://youtu.be/39dbYgm2Aow
In the Teamster national election, the election officer has ruled that IBT president Sean O'Brien illegally took employer funds for his podcast and used …his podcast to attack the candidates of the opposition Fearless slate. WorkWeek interviews IBT vice president at large John Palmer who talked about what
happened and what this means for a democratic election and worker rights.
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https://abc7news.com/post/labor-leaders-us-come-oakland-raise-concerns-president-donald-trumps-tariffs/18194398/
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Production of Labor Video Project
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University of California pushes for $12B scientific research bond to counter federal cuts
The bond will appear on the November ballot if Senate Bill 895 clears the Legislature and receives Newsom's signature this month
…https://edsource.org/2026/trump-administration-cuts-research-funding/759543
Michael-Burke-150×150.jpg
MICHAEL BURKE
PUBLISHED
JUNE 5, 2026
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Health insurance costs hit teachers and districts hard
June 4, 2026 – Teachers say escalating costs are swallowing their raises, while district leaders say schools can’t shoulder the cost as they grapple with declining enrollment.
University of California researchers rally in support of Senate Bill 895, which, if approved, would place a $12 billion research bond on the November ballot.
Courtest of UAW 4811
The Trump administration has awarded fewer grants toward scientific research or eliminated them altogether, impacting researchers at several California universities.
In response, the University of California is pushing to get a $12 billion state bond on the November ballot to fund scientific research at California universities, research institutes and private companies.
For the bond to appear on the ballot, the state Legislature first needs to approve Senate Bill 895, which is supported by the union representing academic workers at UC.
David Boyer is stuck in a waiting game. For more than 18 months, silence from the National Institutes of Health on a crucial grant decision has thrown his research developing treatments for Alzheimer’s disease into uncertain territory.
His application received a favorable impact score, the main metric used for NIH funding decisions, so the postdoctoral scholar at UCLA figured he would hear good news by spring of 2025. Instead, he has heard nothing.
IMG_4782-scaled.jpeg
David Boyer, a postdoctoral scholar in UCLA’s Eisenberg Lab
Without the funding, he has less to spend on his experiments, which require thousands of dollars worth of materials, including advanced microscopes. In a worst-case scenario, it’s possible he could lose his job if the grant doesn’t come through.
“It’s really up in the air whether I would be able to continue getting funded,” said Boyer, who is part of UCLA’s Eisenberg Lab.
Boyer is not alone. Federal funding for scientific research, from agencies such as NIH and the National Science Foundation, has been upended under the Trump administration, with fewer grants being awarded and some existing grants being canceled altogether. Even researchers with stable funding worry that their grants could get suspended or will not be renewed.
But now, Boyer and other researchers at California universities have some hope that they could get a reprieve — from California voters.
The University of California is pushing to get a $12 billion state bond on the November ballot that would fund scientific research projects at California universities, research institutes and private companies. In addition to UC and California State University campuses, private universities such as Stanford and the University of Southern California would also be eligible for the bond money.
For the bond to appear on the ballot, the state Legislature first needs to approve Senate Bill 895. The bill’s sponsors include UC and UAW 4811, the union representing 48,000 academic workers at UC, including thousands of researchers.
The bill was approved last week by the Senate and now heads to the Assembly. It must be passed and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom by June 25 to make the ballot.
“As the federal government cuts and destroys scientific funding, as it creates long-term instability and uncertainty, as science has now become a political football in this country, let’s make sure that California retains and expands our leadership in scientific research,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said on the Senate floor last week just before the vote. Wiener is one of the authors of the bill.
If passed and approved by voters, the measure would create the California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would award the grants using “an open, competitive, scientific peer review process,” according to the bill.
The bond would not be a cure-all for research funding if federal spending continues to dwindle. UC alone gets nearly $6 billion annually in federal support for research.
“There is nobody else who can substitute for research funding on the scale the federal government supplies,” said Simon Atkinson, vice chancellor for research at UC Davis.
Still, Atkinson and other proponents of the bond agree that it would benefit researchers in California not to rely so much on the federal government, especially under the Trump administration, which proposed a $5 billion cut to NIH for 2027. Last week, The New York Times reported that NSF had slowed funding to Harvard and other institutions targeted by the White House, though the impact on California campuses is unclear.
Having another potential funding source would be welcome news to Ximena Anleu Gil, a plant biologist at UC Davis who researches how to breed more plants in environmentally friendly ways.
There is one year remaining on the grant that funds Gil’s position in UC Davis’ Meyers Lab. The prospect of not having the funding renewed is stressful for Gil, who is the main provider for her family, which includes her partner and 7-month-old daughter.
“I’m very scared of what could happen. If I’m laid off, we’re screwed,” Gil said. “But having another source of potential funding, that would already feel like a big relief.”
If voters approve the bond, the legislation requires that priority be given to replacing funding slashed by the federal government.
In California, 782 grants have been terminated by the federal government since January 2025, according to the website Grant Witness, a project tracking terminations under the Trump administration.
Most of those grants have been restored under court orders, but dozens remain canceled, including one at UC San Francisco’s Center for AIDS Research that paid for training for undergraduate students.
Under that grant, students from nearby Hispanic-Serving Institutions, including San Francisco State University, would spend the summer at UCSF doing HIV research. At the end of the summer, the center would hold a symposium where undergraduates present their findings.
The idea was to expose those students to the field and get them interested in HIV research, said Monica Gandhi, director of the center.
“There are fewer and fewer people going into infectious disease research at a time when infectious diseases are all over,” Gandhi said. “It really just got them excited, and we thought it would help grow our biomedical research workforce in a really important topic.”
If California’s bond goes through, Gandhi said she expects the center would immediately apply for a grant to restart that program.
Federal funding remains intact for the rest of the AIDS research center, which organizes all HIV research across UCSF. But it’s not clear how long that will be the case. Gandhi said the center is waiting for a formal notice from NIH to apply for a grant renewal, which she said normally would have come by now.
“There are all these little ways they are making it harder to get funding,” she said. “Having a California-based initiative that isn’t political and will have the grants be judged on their scientific merit would be amazing. And I think it will go a long way.”
Amid federal cuts and funding uncertainties, the University of California is advocating for a state bond to fund scientific research projects at…
edsource.orgFascism & The Neo-Confederacy 2.0 With CC Cambell-Rock
Hollywood unions, workers push back against Paramount-Skydance deal
…https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/hollywood-unions-workers-push-back-023300796.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAA7OrZMYhOc2lUxQToEb-LXY4RUXx3oxMggJGBAHw3RB3zuUe7_ewewpPYJBXh1y89MqXl3hpzk
Simon Mugo
Sat, June 6, 2026 at 7:33 PM PDT 2 min read
Hollywood workers and union representatives rallied in Los Angeles on Saturday against Paramount Skydance's proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Reuters reported.
Protesters argued the deal could lead to additional job losses and reduce competition across the entertainment industry.
The event, held at Lumiere Music Hall, marked the first stop of a three-city "Main Street vs. The Merger" campaign organized by advocacy groups, industry workers, and the Writers Guild of America.
Participants expressed concerns that continued consolidation among major media companies could weaken employment opportunities and reduce the number of outlets available for creative content.
Comedian Adam Conover, one of the featured speakers, said media mergers have already contributed to significant job losses across the industry.
He pointed to the cancellation of his television show following AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner in 2018 as an example of the impact consolidation can have on workers and production teams.
The proposed transaction would combine Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, creating one of the world's largest entertainment companies.
Paramount Skydance has argued the merger would strengthen the combined business without harming competition or creative output.
Chief Executive David Ellison has pledged that the merged company would continue producing at least 30 films annually, seeking to address concerns about reduced content investment.
Regulatory scrutiny remains a key focus. Reuters reported Friday that a group of U.S. states, including California and New York, are preparing a lawsuit aimed at blocking the transaction.
Industry employment has already faced pressure in recent years. Data from the Milken Institute showed California lost more than 17,000 entertainment-related jobs between 2019 and 2023 as studios reduced spending and increasingly shifted production to lower-cost locations.
Conditions have also weakened across Hollywood production facilities. According to FilmLA, soundstage occupancy rates fell to 62% during the first half of 2025, down sharply from near-full utilization levels recorded in 2016.
Labor advocates have argued that reduced competition among major studios could further limit opportunities for workers and independent producers.
Some legal experts have suggested regulators could challenge the transaction on labor market grounds, citing precedent from previous antitrust cases where authorities argued mergers would reduce employment competition.
The deal remains subject to regulatory review and approval.
New Orleans Journalist Warns of Neoconfederacy; Former Microsoft Workers Say No Tech for Apartheid; Spartacist League Militant Calls for Mumia Abu Jamal’s Freedom
…https://capitalismraceanddemocracy.org/2026/06/08/new-orleans-journalist-warns-of-neoconfederacy-former-microsoft-workers-say-no-tech-for-apartheid-spartacist-league-militant-calls-for-mumia-abu-jamals-freedom/
By Capitalism, Race & Democracy – June 8, 20269
Last week, the Supreme Court boosted the openly white supremacist campaign to suppress the Black vote in the Deep South. It ruled that districts jerry-mandered to discriminate against Black voters are constitutional. CC Cambell-Rock, an independent Black journalist from New Orleans, spoke with Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer about what this means to her community.
***
At the Microsoft Build conference in San Francisco, an annual event for engineers and other tech professionals, a former Microsoft worker and other activists spoke out against profiting from the use of the Azure cloud computing platform, AI, and other tech to commit genocide and war crimes. They called for a boycott of Microsoft products and a fight against massive public subsidy of the tech companies to wage war in the Middle East and around the world.
***
Lital Singer of the Spartacist League spoke at a Partisan Defense Committee fundraiser for Class War Prisoners in NYC focusing on the case of political prisoner and veteran journalist Mumia Abu Jamal. Singer demands that a new generation take up the fight for Jamal’s freedom and against this racist frame-up system.
Next, we hear Mumia Abu Jamal’s message from prison addressing the attendees. In Mumia’s message from prison he highlighted the case of Alvaro Luna Hernandez aka Xinachtli, a political prisoner of the State of Texas and the U.S. government. Xinachtli is serving a 50 year prison sentence for an “aggravated assault” conviction stemming from a July 1996 incident in which he disarmed a Brewster County Sheriff who was attempting to shoot him. Alvaro vehemently denies the charge that he assaulted the Sheriff. To Mexican-Americans in the cities, slums, plains, deserts, and prison cages of the Southwest he is a civil rights hero, a Chicano freedom fighter true to his barrio roots and eternally fearless in the face of injustice.
For years, he has been internationally recognized by amnesty movements and human rights lawyers and experts as a U.S. political prisoner, yet inside the United States, the name Alvaro Luna Hernandez is little known. He is housed at the William McConnell Unit in Beehive, Texas, where he is a well-known jailhouse lawyer assisting other incarcerated people in their pursuit of justice.
***
And that concludes today’s edition of Capitalism, Race & Democracy.We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates that contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Steve Zeltzer, Ann Garrison, Polina Vasiliev, and Thomas O’Rourke.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD.
Thanks for listening.
Music:
Common, “I have a dream”
Fela Kuti, “Colonial Mentality”
Last week, the Supreme Court boosted the openly white supremacist campaign to suppress the Black vote in the Deep South. It ruled that districts…
capitalismraceanddemocracy.orgDriverless Trucks Are Here—and They’re Delivering Bags of Doritos
PepsiCo has 41 trucks on the road in Arizona, Texas and Arkansas, bringing the technology into the mainstream
A Gatik delivery truck’s steering wheel rotating itself in South Phoenix. All Rights Reserved. …87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8r-fung)Follow
https://www.wsj.com/business/logistics/driverless-trucks-pepsico-texas-arizona-arkansas-ee4495f0?mod=hp_lead_pos7
2026 at 5:30 am ET
PHOENIX—A 26,000-pound box truck loaded with Doritos and Frito-Lay chips rolls out of a distribution center, bound for a Walmart store about 4 miles away. It looks like any other truck, but there is no one at the wheel.
This is one of the 35 driverless trucks PepsiCo is running on Arizona roads, marking it as the first major U.S. consumer-goods company to disclose the real-life, large-scale use of autonomous trucks on public roads. They are traversing busy highways and local streets as they transport PepsiCo products between bottling plants, storage facilities and stores like Walmart and Dollar General.
PepsiCo has 41 trucks on the road in Arizona, Texas and Arkansas, bringing the technology into the mainstream.
www.wsj.comSupport Ryan: Fired for Union Organizing at UFCW 2013
…https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ryan-fired-for-union-organizing?attribution_id=sl:48d80d14-aba0-4b2c-b9b9-3b6cf7305aaa&lang=en_US&ts=1780882492&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp17_tc-amp20_t1&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link
Phoebe Gilpin
Donation protected
Ryan, a dedicated union organizer and parent of two young children (8 and 4), was unjustly fired in February 2026 by UFCW 2013 management. This firing came less than a week after he and his UFCW Local 2013 coworkers publicly announced they had created a union of their own. As a key organizer, Ryan faced blatant retaliation when management tried to discourage others by terminating him. Management withheld his final paycheck, made up reasons for his dismissal, and even contested his unemployment claim.
For years staff at UFCW 2013 have attempted to unionize, which were repeatedly undermined and busted by management. When Ryan joined the Local in 2024, he brought new energy and leadership, successfully organizing a core group of supporters and leading the final card-check campaign with FAIR. Over this multi-year process, Ryan was continually patient, motivated, and courageous as the staff struggled with fears, doubts, and second-guesses.
In February 2026, the campaign was publicly announced, Ryan was immediately fired, and the staff received an agreement from Local 2013 to card check. Despite management’s attempt to flood the unit in the final days, the staff emerged victorious and certified their union in March 2026.
Co-Worker Solidarity
We, the united staff of Local 2013, recognize the incredible work Ryan has done not only in leading our internal organization, but also in his work as a Collective Bargaining Representative. He pushed contracts forward by organizing members and empowering them to take control of their own bargaining. While this was too threatening to leadership to be allowed to continue, it demonstrated to the rest of the staff that trusting members was the only way to move the union forward. As a consequence of that courage and success, Ryan was fired. Those who remain support him in his struggle for reinstatement and look forward to the day when he can once again serve the Local 2013 membership.
About Ryan
Ryan lives in Brooklyn, NY with his partner Phoebe, two kids, and cat Ezra. He has worked in unions for over a decade, including with NUHW, the Machinists, Unite HERE NEJB, and most recently UFCW 2013. Ryan helped organize Sesame Workers Union (Sesame Street), OnPoint United (harm reduction workers), and a staff union with his coworkers at UFCW 2013 through FAIR. Outside of work he’s a volunteer Lead Organizer for the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), coordinates a community garden, installs community-based wifi through NYC Mesh, and is a member of South Brooklyn DSA.
What You Can Do
Please stand with Ryan and help him through this difficult time. You can:
1. Donate. Funds raised will be used to pay for essentials—housing, food, transportation, and care for Ryan’s family.
2. Share. Send this fundraiser to your friends, community groups, co-workers, and fellow organizers.
3. Tell UFCW to reinstate Ryan Price. Complete the "Contact" form here and demand Ryan's reinstatement to UFCW 2013. https://www.ufcw.org/about/contact-us/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/05/professor-suspended-assignment-mentions-palestinians?fbclid=IwY2xjawSSvv5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEerkOCRQUnyqiJkaE-wEMafjXaq3G4NcvQvIKhEbAVxWcIMTb7yGBe1yBfnEU_aem_TSPpaRu9Bt7ePT0DGS7AYQ
School of the Art Institute of Chicago professor put under investigation after a student complained about a case study
www.theguardian.comLocal health leaders call for state support for public hospitals
https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/public-health/health-leaders-call-for-state-support-for-public-hospitals/article_b5408aa1-f50d-4cad-9368-af4938b10156.html
By Natalia Gurevich | Examiner staff writer 5 hrs ago
Daniel …Tsai at Zuckerberg
Public-health officials — including San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Daniel Tsai — are calling for more state funding for public hospitals.
Natalia Gurevich/SF Examiner
Bay Area public-health officials gathered at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital on Thursday to plead for $500 million in state funding to offset federal funding cuts.
The state’s 17 public hospitals face about $3 billion in funding cuts as a result of the federal One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and could suffer $800 million in cuts in the upcoming state budget.
San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Daniel Tsai and representatives from Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, as well as health-care workers from UCSF and Service Employees International Union 1021, spoke out at a press conference in support of a proposal from the California Association of Public Hospitals for a $500 million fund to be included in the state budget.
Beyond the individuals affected, public hospitals are expected to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, Tsai said, with San Francisco to suffer a loss of $300 million to $400 million annually with the reduction of federal support.
“There’s only so much all of us can do without support from Sacramento and the state to help offset these incredibly damaging cuts,” he said. “Make no mistake, there will be cuts: cuts to clinical services, cuts to trauma services, cuts to specialty and primary-care services — the very things that keep our communities, regardless of income, safe and healthy.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to The Examiner’s request for comment as of press time.
“$500 million may sound like a lot,” Tsai said. “It’s a small percentage of the California budget, without which we will have massive cuts all across the state.”
The proposed state budget, which was unveiled last month, includes a $1.8 billion reduction from general-fund spending in an effort to close the state’s budget deficit. It includes some investments in health care, such as $300 million set aside for the loss of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expired at the end of last year.
But the funding would not be enough to maintain the services and staffing at public hospitals across the state, and officials are concerned that patients will no longer be able to access the care that they need.
“[Zuckerberg] is San Francisco’s safety net,” said Dr. Gabriel Ortiz, the chief medical officer at Zuckerberg. “We’re also the region’s only Level 1 trauma medical center. We care for over 100,000 people every year here at this hospital. That’s one in eight people in San Francisco who may need our help in the next year. That’s a tremendous responsibility.”
Ortiz said the effect of the federal cuts is already being felt at Zuckerberg, where positions have been cut and clinic hours reduced despite a steady rise in the demand for care.
Just as concerning is the number of patients who are delaying or avoiding care because they don’t have coverage, he said.
“I had a patient with liver disease who came in bleeding, who our team saved, and now is struggling to connect with primary care,” Ortiz said. “I’m afraid we will see many more people with preventable complications if we do not make changes and support our health care systems further.”
San Francisco is facing its own budget challenges. Mayor Daniel Lurie’s initial budget proposal, released this week, included significant cuts to public-health and social-service programs as The City struggles to winnow down a $600 million deficit and prevent San Franciscans from losing their insurance coverage.
“Half of the city’s budget deficit in this coming budget cycle is directly related to this,” Tsai said, referring to the broad cuts enacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The City’s Department of Public Health has proposed some $20 million in cuts in response.
“We have made a decision in the city budget to help fill some of the gap in this budget cycle, so we’re not having to gut San Francisco General Hospital primary care,” Tsai said. “But we have had to make other cuts at DPH that are directly related to this, and other city departments have had to make cuts.”
While the proposed city budget will help continue to support the hospital, it’s not enough.
“The bottom line is we need help from the state,” Tsai said.
Local health leaders are calling for the state to step in.
www.sfexaminer.comAmazon Is Using AI to Disempower Workers. The US Labor Movement Must Fight Back.
Amazon is using AI in terrifying ways to disempower workers. We must fight back
https://truthout.org/articles/amazon-is-using-ai-to-disempower-workers-the-us-labor-movement-must-fight-back/
.
By …Jonathan Rosenblum , TRUTHOUT
PublishedJune 6, 2026
Kentucky Amazon air cargo workers and community supporters protest for rights at work, 2023.
Kentucky Amazon air cargo workers and community supporters protest for rights at work, 2023.
CALVIN PRIEST
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Beginning June 7, the AFL-CIO quadrennial convention gathers in Minneapolis with the stated aim of organizing “in unity and clarity of purpose to empower working people.”
That clarity of purpose ought to include a real commitment to take on the biggest and most important organizing challenge that unions face in this era — Amazon.
Thus far, notwithstanding some inspiring individual sites of struggle, the U.S. labor movement has failed to get Amazon to the bargaining table.
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Nationally, union density last year was a measly 10 percent, continuing a historic decline, and that’s not even counting the members lost when Trump ripped up union contracts covering nearly a million federal workers.
That leaves tens of millions of workers to organize, but none are more crucial than the 1.5 million workers and contractors at Amazon.
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Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT) members protest at the Amazon RMU1 warehouse entrance on the first day of the November strike.
Striking Spanish Workers Just Showed That Amazon Is Not Invincible
Ninety years ago, General Motors was capitalism’s trailblazer, emulated by other industrialists seeking to hone productive efficiency, worker exploitation, and profit extraction. GM workers organizing under the CIO banner and resourced by unions that stood to gain no new members themselves from the project — like the United Mine Workers — pushed back against that exploitation, struck, and won new standards. They heralded in a period of mass organizing, the modern heyday of labor’s power.
Amazon is today’s General Motors. What happens to Amazon workers — good or bad — will happen to workers everywhere.
Amazon is a test bed for the future of work for all of us. Employers everywhere are seeking to imitate the behemoth’s labor model of exploitation, job instability, and — terrifyingly — the deployment of AI technologies to discipline and disempower workers.
Amazon is perfecting contracting out, just-in-time labor, and speedups. Its 250,000-plus U.S. drivers are all contracted out, either to a host of small businesses called delivery service partners (DSPs), or hired as independent contractors. That way Amazon can deny responsibility when drivers get injured, ask for more money, or try to unionize. Warehouses operate on a lean-labor model. Normal full-time warehouse schedules are four consecutive 10-hour shifts, but Amazon often cuts workers’ hours any time production slows, even in the middle of a shift, wreaking havoc on already tight family budgets. Then, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Amazon imposes mandatory overtime — an extra hour a day, plus an additional required workday every week — bringing the workweek to a brutal 55 hours and disregarding the effects on workers’ personal and family lives.
Amazon is today’s General Motors. What happens to Amazon workers — good or bad — will happen to workers everywhere.
Through its aggressive introduction of robots — now over 1 million — Amazon is replacing workers and forcing those remaining to work faster. It’s no wonder that Amazon workers get hurt on the job so often, and that the company’s serious injury rate is nearly double the rate of its warehouse industry peers.
Then there is AI. I know a bit about this directly, as I’ve worked for the last year and a half as a part-time Amazon delivery driver. The delivery service partner I work for is a fair employer, but it is not the problem; Amazon is, because while drivers technically are not employed by the company, we all are subject to its tracking and oversight.
When I’m in the Amazon truck, every movement I make is tracked with technology and evaluated by AI programs — where I am, which packages I’ve delivered, and whether it’s keeping pace with the algorithm that Amazon has determined I must meet. Readouts at the end of every shift show how each of my deliveries compared to the timing prescribed by Amazon’s algorithmic standard. We are evaluated every week on whether we took accurate photos on delivery, delivered the packages exactly where the customer requested, and got good or bad customer feedback. Through the system, drivers who don’t “make rate” or who don’t meet Amazon’s prescribed standards don’t stay employed.
Netradyne’s AI-driven “Driver•I” camera mounted in an Amazon delivery vehicle.
Netradyne’s AI-driven “Driver•I” camera mounted in an Amazon delivery vehicle.
What’s enabling this level of oversight? Big Brother: the “NetradyneDriver•i,” your ride-along buddy in the van. Camera lenses point in all directions, continually measuring your speed and distance. Netradyne also tracks whether or not you are making a complete stop at every stop sign, using your turn signal, avoiding lane drift, braking, accelerating, or cornering too fast. It watches your eye orientation and movement. Whether you yawn. If you look away from the road for too long. All of these data points are ingested into an AI system where technology, not a person, is evaluating your behavior every second. Netradyne boasts about this as “physical AI deployed at scale.”
Employers everywhere are seeking to imitate the behemoth’s labor model of exploitation, job instability, and — terrifyingly — the deployment of AI technologies to discipline and disempower workers.
In Reddit chat groups, Amazon drivers around the country now report being fired not by a human, but by AI.
For warehouse workers, Amazon has harnessed the same surveillance technology to make sure that workers’ pick, pack, and sort rates meet its algorithmically determined standards, that their scans are perfect, and that they’re minimizing “time off task” — like going to the bathroom. Everything is measured and tracked. And if you don’t “make rate,” then first you get counseled, then disciplined, then fired.
In many warehouses, Amazon utilizes security officers and local police to enforce “an organizational culture of near-carceral obedience — what amounts to a ‘militarization’ of human resource functions,” a recent academic report found. “It feels like we’re coming into prison, and they’re trying to make sure we don’t escape,” the report quotes one worker as saying.
This workplace dystopia is being perfected at Amazon, then exported to other employers — in factories, grocery stores, hospitals, restaurants, hotels, construction sites, laboratories, and offices.
This is the bleak future we are handing to our children — unless we organize Amazon at scale and fight back.
Amazon is not just a problem for those of us in the logistics industry. From a humble online book seller, Amazon has transformed in a generation to disrupt other industries. Its avariciousness is only growing. Amazon today operates 532 Whole Foods grocery stores and is rapidly building out its grocery delivery network. This is the next major industry that the company intends to upend.
Through Amazon Web Services, the company is now a dominant global provider of computing power, storage, networking, analytics, and security. Amazon makes its own Trainium AI chips, directly competing with Nvidia. Amazon produces and distributes film and television shows through its Amazon MGM Studios. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Amazon One Medical is a primary care health service with online and clinic care, and it’s moving aggressively into the prescription drug market with Amazon Pharmacy. Through its Ring subsidiary, Amazon today dominates the home security market, and it provides other leading consumer electronics such as Alexa and Kindle.
Can a company that big and expansive, a behemoth with nearly $3 trillion in market valuation, be beaten?
Yes, it can. But as a report published on June 4 emphasizes, it will take a herculean, all-in effort by the entire U.S. labor movement to beat back Amazon — not just the valiant but fragmented efforts we have seen thus far.
In Reddit chat groups, Amazon drivers around the country now report being fired not by a human, but by AI.
The report, Renewing Labor and Winning at Amazon, which I coauthored along with Michael McQuarrie and Benjamin Y. Fong, and which was published by the Center for Work and Democracy at Arizona State University, documents how in contrast to the 1930s, when CIO organizers were able to throttle production by striking at a few key production sites, the Amazon organizing project must aim wider. With a network of hundreds of warehouses, sort centers, and air cargo facilities, “the company has the agility to redirect package flow to other facilities, keeping the supply chain intact” and render single-site strikes largely irrelevant, the report notes, concluding that “today’s labor strategists need to recognize that in order to be successful, organizing must disrupt Amazon’s supply chain flow.”
That means organizing throughout entire regions or sections of the company’s supply chain. The report highlights two strategic regions in particular. The first is centered in the Los Angeles area and the Inland Empire just east of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where most of Amazon’s imported goods flow before being disbursed to warehouses nationally. The second comprises the Northeast region, which is home to a huge concentration of Amazon customers. The Teamsters union already is organizing in both of those regions, where workers doggedly have been taking on the company. But the scale of organizing to date is not equal to the challenge. In the company’s massive JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, the Amazon Labor Union, now part of the Teamsters, won a historic union representation vote in 2022. Four years on, notwithstanding persistent worker organizing, Amazon has yet to agree to recognize the union and bargain.
Hundreds of inside organizers — political activists who have taken jobs at Amazon to “salt,” or organize from within — have developed sophistication in organizing at Amazon in recent years, and must play an important role in any national campaign. The same is true for existing logistics, grocery, health care, and other union members. “UPS and DHL Teamster members have been especially effective organizers, sharing with Amazon workers a common language and common concerns about the supply chain work process, speedups, technology, and the problems posed by management,” the Renewing Labor and Winning at Amazon report notes. “They, along with union members in other sectors, can easily point to wins they have achieved through collective bargaining and striking that differentiate their working conditions dramatically from those of the Amazon workers.”
While organizing must be centered in the warehouses and geared toward building mass strike actions, the labor movement must envision — and fund — an all-encompassing campaign that draws in the public, other businesses, governments, and regulators. That’s because Amazon’s impact goes far beyond the workplace, and it will take pressure both inside Amazon’s supply chain and throughout society to force the company to deal with unions.
Tens of thousands of Amazon trucks pollute the air, harm public health, and degrade public roadways, and the tax breaks demanded routinely by Amazon starve local governments of the resources needed to provide public services.
“Communities in warehouse concentration areas, such as California’s Inland Empire, are ripe sites for uniting workers and community members in common campaigns against both exploitation in the warehouse and also against the externalized burdens that Amazon imposes on the community at large,” the report notes.
Amazon utilizes security officers and local police to enforce “an organizational culture of near-carceral obedience — what amounts to a ‘militarization’ of human resource functions.”
Because the National Labor Relations Board is not an effective pathway to force Amazon to bargain, unions must advance state and local ballot initiatives to advance key worker and community demands. This is not a novel concept. Fifteen years ago, the Fight for $15 drew on the power of ballot initiatives to win raises for millions of workers. Some went on to build unions in their workplaces. Today, the call could be “Fight for $30,” a number frequently cited by Amazon workers as the bare minimum they need to survive.
Initiatives also could set safety standards for workers, ban the contracting-out of Amazon delivery drivers, and restrict data center siting.
Another initiative idea involves taxing robots. This would replenish revenue that governments lose when Amazon swaps out humans — who pay payroll taxes and who also contribute to sales tax revenue when they spend money in the community — with robots, who do neither of those things. Initiatives could also require Amazon to pay into a publicly controlled affordable housing fund to offset the destruction of housing that warehouse expansion causes. Or they could require Amazon to pay for health clinics and air cleanup, to compensate for the pollution that is caused by the daily movement of Amazon trucks and train cars.
These and other initiative ideas disrupt Amazon’s business model of exploitation and can be powerful mechanisms for drawing workers and community members together in common cause and in the ultimate demand for union recognition and contracts.
In some cases, ventures that challenge Amazon’s business model can be run as legislative campaigns instead of initiatives. In New York City, a coalition of union members and community activists is pressing City Council to pass the Delivery Protection Act, which would require Amazon to hire drivers directly and improve safety standards. That’s a good start. Now imagine Delivery Protection Act campaigns being waged simultaneously in 20 cities.
Workers at Amazon’s air cargo hub in northern Kentucky strike in July 2024.
Workers at Amazon’s air cargo hub in northern Kentucky strike in July 2024.
JONATHAN ROSENBLUM
Unions also should exploit frustration that third-party vendors and sellers have with Amazon. Individuals and small businesses trying to sell their products on the Amazon platform find their margins squeezed by the behemoth. Some companies have accused Amazon of stealing their ideas and then launching competitor products. Vendors like the DSPs are continually on tenterhooks, their contracts with Amazon subject to cancellation with almost no notice. A creative Amazon campaign can find common cause with these unlikely forces by launching local and state fights to rein in the behemoth’s power against individual sellers and small businesses.
Amazon “has a corporate dynamism and infrastructural flexibility unmatched by any other contemporary company,” the report notes. “But sheer size and wealth does not make it invincible. Indeed, the speed and complexity of Amazon’s supply chain make it a vulnerable organizing target as well as a challenging one. A well-resourced and multi-dimensional campaign can secure union recognition and contracts at Amazon.”
What constitutes a “well-resourced” campaign? Unions currently spend in aggregate about $10 million a year on Amazon organizing, with the lion’s share of that coming from the Teamsters. That is simply not enough to beat a company with 1,500 U.S. worksites and more than $120 billion cash on hand. To organize 80,000 workers in LA, or 100,000 on the east coast, or 50,000 in Florida, or the tens of thousands in other regions, I think we will need at least $100 million annually for at least a decade to fund thousands of organizers, both inside and outside Amazon facilities, along with a robust campaign infrastructure to build a new CIO-style industrial organizing movement.
That may seem like a lot of money, but consider that the U.S. labor movement assets today are around $35 billion, a 225 percent increase in the last 15 years, and that U.S. labor leaders spent more than $400 million on the failed Biden-Harris candidacy.
Collectively within labor, the resources are there to mount a serious Amazon campaign. Whether or not to take on the fight is a political choice.
This can’t be a fight taken on by just a handful of unions. It must be an all-in effort. Some 90 years ago, leaders in the United Mine Workers and other unions made a pact to organize workers in the auto, steel, electrical, and rubber industries, because they knew that without mass organizing, the entire working class was in jeopardy. This weekend, as AFL-CIO leaders meet in Minneapolis, unions stand at the same parlous crossroads. Let’s hope they make the right choice that their predecessors did 90 years ago.
Amazon is using AI in terrifying ways to disempower workers. We must fight back.
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