Forcing Amazon to respect its workers

Something you can do

Last month, while we were urging Drop Site readers to buy Refaat Alareer’s new book “If I Must Die,” we sent people to both Bookshop.org, which supports independent booksellers, and to Amazon, which most certainly does not. It pained me every time we included an Amazon link, but their dominance in the book industry is such that it’s effectively impossible to hit the bestseller list and avoid them.

So please consider this email today my penance: If Amazon intends to be an unavoidable fact of our daily lives, the least we can do is force them to treat their workers with dignity. As we reported earlier, Amazon workers at seven locations around the country organized a strike timed for the holidays to try to force Amazon to the bargaining table. These are workers who have already voted and decided to form a union, yet Amazon is simply refusing to recognize them or meet with them. Public pressure and striking is the only route left for those workers.

The union has organized a petition calling on Amazon to recognize the union and enter into contract negotiations.

By signing the petition, you’ll not only be helping to show mass support – it already has nearly 90,000 signers – but you’ll also be giving the workers the ability to let you know about upcoming actions where public pressure can be helpful. (If you don’t want that, you can unsubscribe. You know the drill.)

Thanks for all you do,

Ryan

P.S. If you haven’t ordered Refaat’s book, you can still do that. It’s listed as “temporarily out of stock” but I’m told by the publisher, OR Books, they have a huge print run going now, so they should be shipping fairly soon.