Is Amazon so formidable that it may well’t be overwhelmed? Three years after Staten Island warehouse employees gained a union election, Amazon’s legal machinations have blocked all bargaining. Amazon supply drivers and warehouse employees at a handful of websites have demanded direct recognition and bargaining — solely to be fired or ignored by the corporate. Earlier this 12 months, Amazon deployed a full range of union-busting tactics to beat down employees in a union election in North Carolina.
Union organizers within the U.S. and elsewhere struggling to construct employee energy would possibly look to their Italian counterparts for a little bit of encouragement.
On Good Friday, April 18, hundreds of Amazon drivers went on strike on the firm’s 41 supply stations all through Italy, jamming up items supply within the run-up to the busy Easter weekend. The one-day strike was a present of energy, an escalation of employee calls for for job safety, safer working circumstances, and an finish to crushing workloads and relentless speedups.
The three unions that coordinated the job motion reported driver strike participation was at 85 p.c nationally, with one hundred pc participation in cities like Genoa and Rimini. With an estimated 15,000 Amazon drivers within the nation, that may put the variety of strikers properly over 10,000. “Alexa, discover me a good contract,” learn one banner exterior a blockaded Amazon facility in Rome. “Jeff, much less house and extra drivers,” read another in Milan.
The drivers are inserting their calls for earlier than Assoespressi, the affiliation of supply firms, in addition to Amazon. As within the U.S. and elsewhere, Amazon Italy contracts out last-mile supply to a slew of firms. These corporations rent the drivers, although Amazon units the working circumstances. Assoespressi has met with the three union federations organizing at Amazon — CGIL, CISL and UIL — however has refused to budge on the employees’ core points. Putting drivers stated their April 18 motion was supposed to pressure each Assoespressi and Amazon to cut price for higher working circumstances, together with job safety for all drivers.
“This strike was vital to indicate each Amazon, Assoespressi and likewise ourselves, that we even have the ability to go on a nationwide strike, and obtain such participation as properly,” a Bologna driver, who requested that we not use his title because of concern of reprisal, informed Truthout.
Many Italian drivers for Amazon are employed on momentary one- and three-month contracts, particularly throughout peak seasons. That is an identical to Amazon’s warehouse divide-and-exploit apply within the U.S., the place the corporate hires “seasonal” employees, with decrease pay and fewer advantages than “everlasting” employees, however retains them on for half a 12 months or extra on the decrease standing. In Italy, utilizing its infamous algorithmically pushed work quotas, Amazon pits momentary contract drivers in opposition to each other by rating them for “productiveness.” This pushes employees to attempt to outpace each other to qualify for a brand new employment contract.
Amazon has been growing workloads for everlasting employees as properly. “Once they employed me six years in the past, I left [the delivery station] with a most of 100-120 packages,” putting driver Claudio Simini told Corriere di Bologna, an area newspaper in northern Italy “Currently, for a similar wage, I’ve carried round greater than 300 packages.”
Along with demanding decrease package deal masses, the drivers are calling for elevated each day journey allowances between municipalities from 20 to 22 euros, and the suitable to cease driving throughout extreme flooding and different “crimson climate alert” durations, which have gotten extra frequent with local weather change.
On the strike day, drivers picketed and in some instances blocked Amazon supply stations with their very own automobiles. Exterior Amazon’s Bologna supply station, dozens of drivers milled about, their personal automobiles blockading all visitors whereas police stood by helplessly. “No cash, no pacchi [packages]” one poster learn.
“Alexa, discover me a good contract,” learn one banner exterior a blockaded Amazon facility in Rome.
“It was a warning strike, however we nonetheless want to attend for Assoespressi and the three confederal unions to fulfill once more. It will be completely vital to escalate if one other door closes, however we additionally should see how a lot the unions are keen to compromise and whether or not they are going to name it or not,” the Bologna driver who requested anonymity stated.
Final week’s walkout was not the biggest ever Italian strike in opposition to Amazon — that was in March 2021, the primary nationwide walkout, involving employees in warehouses, hubs and supply stations, resulting in the first-ever collective bargaining agreement between unions and the company behemoth. That contract secured extra rights protecting well being and security, workload, working time, and elevated pay and bonuses for warehouse employees and drivers.
The 2021 strike, in flip, wasn’t the primary time Italian Amazon employees hit the picket traces. They’ve been exercising their strike muscle mass since 2017, together with, notably, a 13-day strike in the northern city of Piacenza on the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic that compelled Amazon to conform to masks, gloves, social distancing, and different well being measures.
Examine the Italian nationwide strike expertise to the scenario within the U.S., the place smaller teams of 80 to 100 drivers have gone on strike at particular person worksites, solely to seek out themselves out of labor when Amazon slashed delivery company contracts. Final December, when the Teamsters union introduced strikes at eight U.S. Amazon facilities, solely about 600 employees participated. These December strikes constructed employee confidence on the picket traces and sparked conversations at many warehouses nationally. However their scope is dramatically smaller than these of the strike actions occurring in Italy.
It actually is true that the authorized system is extra favorable for employees organizing in Italy, the place legal guidelines mandate nationwide bargaining by the commercial sector. That is partly a product of the nation’s post-WWII structure. However Peter Olney, a veteran U.S. labor organizer who has spent important time working with Italian unions, stated the distinction can be “due to the historic energy of the largely Communist-led labor motion” that emerged from the anti-fascist wrestle for liberation.
In Italy, Amazon is celebration to nationwide sectoral agreements, protecting wages and dealing circumstances.
Nonetheless, the provision of authorized help for employees is way from adequate to make the wrestle straightforward for Italian employees. As elsewhere, Amazon makes use of algorithmic administration to pressure speedups and momentary contract schemes to maintain employees divided in Italian worksites. Italian legal guidelines restrict or prohibit strikes, and officers within the confederated commerce unions typically act as a brake on employee militancy and direct motion, settling contracts in need of employee calls for.
“We’ve seen union officers up to now settle agreements in need of what we want,” stated the motive force in Bologna with whom Truthout spoke. “It’s good that they’re speaking about our security, hours and journey allowance, however they shouldn’t lose sight of job safety and better wage for all drivers. Drivers I work with are involved that the union officers would possibly negotiate an settlement on some points however not resolve the larger issues.”
And, simply as U.S. employees are contending with Donald Trump’s hostility to employees and unions, Italian employees should cope with the hard-right authorities of Giorgia Meloni, who has served as prime minister of Italy since 2022. Her authorities is cracking down on individuals protesting the struggle in Ukraine and the Israeli state’s genocide in opposition to Palestinians, and in doing so can be tightening management over employee protests. Two weeks earlier than the strike, Meloni issued a new decree that purported to guard “public security” however in actuality was aimed immediately at suppressing employees and their unions. Amongst different measures, the brand new regulation gives for as much as two years of jail time for employees who block streets — exactly the tactic exercised by the putting Amazon employees.
The very important organizing lesson popping out of Italy is that Amazon could be compelled to cut price — not by single-site organizing or sporadic job actions, however by bold regional and nationwide strikes that shut down the corporate’s distribution community.
How these giant strikes will look, exactly, will differ from one nation to a different. However to pressure Amazon to cut price, there should be disruptive actions; there are not any shortcuts to constructing employee energy at Amazon.
Italian employees have proven Amazon employees in every single place that it’s doable to construct employee energy and wrest concessions from the corporate by large-scale, disruptive actions.
In the U.S., where Amazon has around 1,445 facilities — 22 instances the quantity in Italy — organizing, putting and disrupting the Amazon provide chain would require assets far beyond the Teamsters’ annual organizing commitment of $8 million.
Whereas struggles in every nation are formed by the authorized, political and organizing terrain explicit to that nation, extra must be executed to encourage Amazon employees to be taught from each other and construct transnational organizing.
For years, Amazon employees have been assembly one another in Europe and past. In 2019, the Transnational Social Strike Platform — a global alternate of employees and organizers — printed an book, Strike The Giant, which collected detailed examples of Amazon organizing struggles from completely different international locations.
Three weeks in the past, many of those Amazon employees and organizers, spanning eight international locations from Asia to North America to Europe, gathered in Germany below the banner of Amazon Workers International to share experiences and advance organizing plans. Coalitions of established labor federations like UNI World Union and Progressive Worldwide even have convened Amazon organizing discussions and actions in recent times.
Given the scale and energy of Amazon, these transnational relationships are important. For now, the Italian employees have proven Amazon employees in every single place that it’s doable to construct employee energy and wrest concessions from the corporate by large-scale, disruptive actions.
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