[Plura-list] Amazon warehouse union gets tech solidarity

Tue Jan 19 13:04:42 EST 2021

Today's links

* Amazon warehouse union gets tech solidarity: #DoItWithRealPower

* This day in history: 2006, 2016

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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🦗 Amazon warehouse union gets tech solidarity

While many Amazon warehouse workers in Europe have unionized, its
brutalized, underpaid, routinely maimed US workforce remains tragically
unorganized, thanks to the US's weak labor laws that make forming a
union far harder than at any time since the Gilded Age.

But all that may be about to change: 6000 warehouse workers in BHM1, the
massive Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, AL, will vote next month on a push
to unionize under the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/948819324/amazon-warehouse-workers-to-decide-whether-to-form-companys-first-u-s-union

Amazon, like other tech giants, is absolutely reliant on building and
maintaining a competitive advantage by exploiting technology to drive
wages ever downward while ducking responsibility for harming workers.

Big Tech is pants-wettingly afraid of unionization, and that goes double
for any solidarity between high-paid tech workers and
misclassified/outsourced warehouse workers and other "unskilled" laborers.

Amazon has gone so far as to hire the Pinkertons, renowned as some of
history's most violent anti-worker terrorists, to bust unionization
drives in its shops:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#awu

But while the Pinkertons are engaging in covert surveillance,
infiltration, and retaliation, Amazon is also running a soft-power op
called #DoItWithoutDues, grounded in the idiotic lie that unions cost
workers more than they gain:

https://www.doitwithoutdues.com/

The Tech Workers Coalition has fired back with a debunking site,
#DoItWithRealPower, that copies the layout from Amazon's astroturf site
and rebuts it, point by point:

https://justdue.it/

This would be a super-fun, gnarly copyright/fair use case (law school
profs, take note), but the substance is even more fascinating: you won't
pay dues until your union gets a contract, which will get you higher pay.

Not just pay, but also an effective grievance procedure to address
Amazon warehouses' manifestly unsafe working conditions.

https://bamazonunion.org/amazons-working-conditions-are-not-safe

"On average, unionized workers earn 19% more than non-unionized workers
so, if you make the average $31k a year, a union could win you an
increase in YOUR PAYCHECK of $5,900 annually. That’s a whole lot more
dinners, school supplies, gifts, and dignity."

The site ends with a link to the Bessemer Amazon Union drive:

https://bamazonunion.org/

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🦗 This day in history

#15yrsago Mysterious birthday ritual at Poe’s graveside disrupted by
rubberneckers
https://web.archive.org/web/20060212041742/https://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/19/poe.mystery.ap/index.html

#15yrsago Nutjob offers $100 bounty to UCLA students who wiretap lefty
profs
https://web.archive.org/web/20060219020333/https://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/01/19/ucla.radicals.reut/index.html

#5yrsago Transreal Cyberpunk! Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling’s book of
annotated, seminal cyberpunk fiction
http://www.rudyrucker.com/ruckersterling/

#5yrsago The Democratic Party’s SOPA-loving, Snowden-hating,
Hillary-partisan power-broker has her first-ever primary challenger
https://theintercept.com/2016/01/19/meet-debbie-wasserman-schultzs-first-ever-primary-challenger-tim-canova/

#5yrsago Griefer hacks baby monitor, terrifies toddler with spooky
voices
https://sfglobe.com/2016/01/06/stranger-hacks-familys-baby-monitor-and-talks-to-child-at-night/

#5yrsago GM’s Dieselgate: mechanics privately admit software update
removes crimeware from Opel cars
https://web.archive.org/web/20160126055328/http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/videozone_ENG/1.2549687

#5yrsago How the standard, high-quality disaster-relief tarpaulin came
to be https://www.wired.com/2016/01/tarpaulin/

#5yrsago England’s most senior civil judge rules that Terrorism Act
violates human rights
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/19/terrorism-act-incompatible-with-human-rights-court-rules-in-david-miranda-case

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🦗 Colophon

Today's top sources: Clarissa Redwine (https://twitter.com/ClarissaRedwine).

Currently writing: My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel
about truth and reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 562 words (100534
total).

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (part 27)
https://craphound.com/news/2021/01/11/someone-comes-to-town-someone-leaves-town-part-27/

Upcoming appearances:

* Keynote for linux.conf.au, Jan 22 (US) 23 (Australia)
https://linux.conf.au/schedule/

* Evening with William Gibson, Jan 25,
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/william-gibson-cory-doctorow-agency-tickets-132831910821

* Boskone, 58, Feb 12-15, https://boskone.org/

* Keynote, NISO Plus, Feb 22-25,
https://niso.plus/cory-doctorow-to-keynote-at-niso-plus-2021/

Recent appearances:

* Monocle Reads
https://monocle.com/radio/shows/meet-the-writers/monocle-reads-87/play/

* Hedging Bets on the Future (Motherboard Cyber):
https://play.acast.com/s/cyber/hedgingbetsonthefuturewithauthorcorydoctorow

* Applying the Pandemic Mindset to Climate Change:
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/12/applying-the-pandemic-mindset-to-climate-change-with-cory-doctorow

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

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provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
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"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion
Guy" DeVilla

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