LESSONS LEARNED 1

 LESSONS LEARNED (Amazonians United: https://labornotes.org/2020/05/how-

amazon-workers-are-organizing-long-haul) We would point to the following lessons

as more Amazon warehouse workers begin organizing for protections.

1) Build Deep: The power workers have comes from our ability to stand together and

demonstrate solidarity. Start with building a team—an organizing committee (OC)—

first gathering people who want to make a change and who you trust. The more your

team gets people from different departments and different social groups, the better.

2) Inoculate: Having fear of taking action together is normal. ...Communicate with

your coworkers that if only one person speaks out, they are more at risk, but when

organized we are stronger against management's attacks. Let them know that

management will crack down, and we have to have each other's backs.

3) Take Action Together: A petition with widely felt demands is a great way to start. It

helps you to have conversations with coworkers, shows coworkers that many people

want the same things, and helps build unity and confidence.

Use the petition to build your organization by asking if people are willing to take action

with you. Set goals for signatures. When you hit your goal, deliver your petition to

management as a crew. .....

Managers may demand you to speak to them one at a time, to sow division. Stand

strong as a group. This demonstrates unity, and that when one person speaks, they

speak for an organized group.

Sometimes we may have the urge to speak out individually or lead an action as a

courageous leader; this makes it easier for management to isolate leaders and fire

them, leading to an organization without a head.

4) Constantly Find New Solid OC Members: Build out your Organizing Committee

with people who are respected by others, which can then bring more cautious people...

5) Build Solidarity with Other Sites: Reach out to Amazonians United...

6) Fight Amazon’s B.S.: ... Amazon can set up work in a way where they can use little

things that normally are not a punishable offense for bogus write-ups. Fight these..... As

you build your organization, you can also use legal strategies to defend yourself,

including unfair labor practices. ... challenge the undemocratic order [bosses] uphold.

... A union is nothing more than you and your coworkers coming together to make

change. By building the union together with our coworkers, we aim to have control over

our organization, our workplaces, and our lives, ensuring a future where we are

respected as people and thrive together. Amazon bosses will do everything in their

power to keep us separated and feeling powerless. But together we keep us safe.

Amazonians United Wins PTO for all Amazon Workers (March 2020)

https://medium.com/@dch1united/amazonians-united-wins-pto-for-all-amazon-

workers-f17e6ffbb192

1. Petition to address specific problem (lack of clean drinking water on the dock),

signed by 150, succeeded

2. We invited more coworkers who had signed the water petition to meet up at a

McDonalds after work, and there decided that we’d do a survey to figure out what

issues to address next.

3. So we collected signatures on another petition demanding A/C, a raise and health

insurance. Then, during our 15 minute break on the first day of Prime Week

2019, 25 of us marched into our bosses office to present our demands.

4. he started saying that he could only meet with us 1 on 1, which we were not

interested in.

5. We confronted a disrespectful manager and made Amazon train them on how to

treat us with respect. We confronted the top boss at our All-Hands meetings,

demanding a raise. We created DCH1 Amazonians United shirts and started

wearing them at work. We started a weekly potluck during our lunch time to share

food with each other and build community. And of course we kicked back and

threw some parties on the weekends. All this to say, when we found out that

Amazon was denying us the PTO we were supposed to have, we were ready to do

something about it.

6. We need PTO to recover from Amazon constantly grinding our body down and

crushing our soul. In our capitalist economy designed to squeeze every last drop of

energy from our bodies, we need PTO to have some time to breathe, live and

remember what it is to have dignity and freedom.

7. To spread awareness, we created a flyer with screenshots of the employee

handbook where it outlines the PTO benefits we’re supposed to be getting. During

break time and before/after our shift, we distributed these flyers to our coworkers.

8. We decided to deliver our petition at these meetings because all our coworkers and

the site lead would be there. We had gathered 251 signatures across all the shifts,

9. Our Site Lead said he would only meet with us 1 on 1. We were demanding a group

meeting with our regional manager, not a 1 on 1 with our Site Lead, so we did not

agree to play his divide-and-conquer game. We gave our Site Lead one week to set

up the meeting between DCH1 Amazonians United and our Regional Manager,

10. Coworkers were angry about management’s dismissal and disrespect. People

would ask “why do they insist on meeting with us 1 on 1 if 250 of us want to talk

about the same issue?” Following the lead of the Sacramento Amazon workers, we

made 250 “Amazonians United for PTO” buttons and began passing them out

during break and before/after shift. Everyone wanted one. They made us feel united

and we all wore them with pride.

11. We made more buttons and started sending them to fellow Amazon workers at

other facilities who wanted to start up PTO campaigns. Then, in the middle of our

campaign for PTO, we got hit with the Coronavirus pandemic.

12. Amazon gave us PTO because they want us to calm down a bit and keep the

packages flowing.