Workers take the fight to Amazon in its own backyard
By Cat Ngo, Workers Strike Back. Published April 9, 2023
Since announcing their union card collection drive, workers at Amazon Airhub KCVG in Northern Kentucky have faced intense union busting from Amazon management. On March 25, alongside Workers Strike Back and socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant, the workers took the fight to the Amazon executives in their own backyard with a powerful rally at the Amazon Spheres in Seattle.
With the demands of $30/hour starting wage, 180 hours PTO, and union representation at disciplinary meetings, workers at KCVG spoke to the working conditions that made organizing a union absolutely necessary and why this union drive is one of the most crucial labor fights right now in the country.
Steven Kelly, a learning ambassador at KCVG, shared how the KCVG air hub is strategically important to Amazon. “It’s the largest air hub facility in Amazon’s network. We’re handling 35% of all Amazon freight and will be handling 70% after it’s finished being built.” In 2022, Amazon made over 200 billion dollars in profits. At KCVG, “We’re making them a billion dollars a day. But we don’t see any of that,” Steven continued. Braedon Pierce, also at KCVG, laid out the dangerous working conditions workers face everyday. “We’re out at an airport. We’re working with live engines, heavy machinery and packages that weigh over 4,000 pounds. All it takes is a simple mistake and you’re seriously injured, or killed… We’re out here risking our lives so people can get two-day shipping.” This is why workers at KCVG are fighting for a union and $30 an hour. “We need 30. We deserve 30!” Pierce said to loud applause.
Building up to the rally in Seattle, Workers Strike Back organised a Week of Action across the country to stand in solidarity with workers at KCVG. Workers and young people came out with Workers Strike Back to talk to their communities about the need to unionize Amazon everywhere, what a victory at KCVG would mean, and the fighting approach that will be necessary to win. Workers Strike Back helped workers put forward and pass solidarity resolutions in their unions, and raised $5,000 to put towards the struggle at KCVG. On the same day of the rally in Seattle, Workers Strike Back also organised a protest in Chicago outside the office of Amazon’s union-busting law firm Jackson Lewis PC, underlying the need of a national movement to win a union at KCVG.
Retaliatory firing is a key tool in the union-busting toolbox. At KCVG, Amazon executives fired Edward Clarke as one of the leading organizers of the union drive. “I was the first casualty. Because they [Amazon management] knew I was a threat for organising a union,” Ed said at the Seattle rally. “We need workers to stand up to this kind of retaliation. Because without us, there is no Amazon! Without us, there is no Google. Without us, there is no Starbucks. Without us, these corporations have nothing!”
Important in winning any labor fight is solidarity across different unions because a workers’ fight anywhere is the fight of workers everywhere. At the rally at Amazon Spheres, union workers from UFCW 3000 stood in solidarity with KCVG workers and spoke on their fight for full staffing and pay raise. Jordan Young and Maddy Olson, union workers at PCC grocery store, raised the need for unions to fight back against the tactics of business unionism using militant rank-and-file action to win their demands. Logan Swan, a union Ironworker and Longshoremen, stressed the importance of having a union for working people and why a victory at KCVG will be “absolutely explosive for working class people across the country.”
Workers have confidence that they can defeat Amazon because they have done so before. In Seattle, socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant won re-election in 2019, despite Amazon dropping $1 million to try to unseat her. In 2020, working people in Seattle, alongside Sawant’s council office, fought for and won the Amazon Tax, a tax on big business like Amazon that generates over 200 million dollars annually to fund affordable housing. “If there’s anything that [Jeff] Bezos and the Amazon bosses hate even more than the tax we won, it’s unions. Because they don’t want workers to be able defend themselves,” Sawant said at the rally outside the spheres. “The only way for us to stand up against them is collectively organize around a militant, fighting strategy. That’s why we have launched Workers Strike Back.”
This fight at KCVG is one of the most important unionization campaigns happening in the U.S. right now and Workers Strike Back is in solidarity with KCVG workers every step of the way. If you want to get involved, Workers Strike Back is organising events across the country to mobilize to help rebuild a fighting labor movement. If you are in a union, please consider reaching out to Workers Strike Back for support in bringing forward a resolution in your union to stand in solidarity with KCVG workers. As Pierce closed out his speech, “We’re here not just to show Amazon, but also the whole world, that the workers still hold the power. It’ll take all of us to win this fight!
