Google and Amazon Facing Union Efforts

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Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

1-5-21

Last month, Amazon employees at its warehouse in Alabama received permission from the (NLRB)  National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election at the plant. There is still some haggling over whether the vote should be by mail or in person. Amazon is the second largest employer in the US.  Perhaps MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Jeff Bezos Amazon boss and the richest man in the world, might throw her weight behind the union drive, she’s a very friendly generous person and loves poor people. The now divorced former Mrs. Bezos has donated $4 billion to worthy causes in the past four months accord to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Impoverished communities facing food shortages and “racial inequality” were the lucky recipients of the cash infusion which still leaves Ms. Scott with $61 billion and the 18^th richest person in the world.

 

It’s a wonder we have poverty at all, not just in the US but anywhere in the world with people like Ms. Scott, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet George Soros and other billionaires giving so much money to the poor. The economist Jeffrey Sachs estimated that to end extreme poverty worldwide in 20 years, the total cost per year would be about $175 billion, an amount less than one percent of the combined income of the richest countries in the world. Unfortunately, the market rules and in the Capitalist mode of production, if you can’t pay for food you won’t get it and it won’t be produced. The world’s hungry aren’t clamoring for Almond milk that’s for sure.

 

Well good luck to Amazon workers I say and they need it given the dismal record of the present trade union hierarchy in organizing new members. Let’s face it, they refuse to defend the living standards of the members they already have. It’s important to join a union including an AFL-CIO one, as long as one recognizes that once in, the battle with the present pro-capitalist leadership and their concessionary policies begins and internal struggles are difficult.

 

Google Unionization Efforts
Meanwhile, some Google employees have formed a union called the Alphabet Workers Union; Alphabet is Google’s parent company. It’s as yet a small group of workers, about 200 employees out of a workforce of 132,000 and will be affiliated with the CWA, Communication Workers of America Local 1400 according to the Wall Street Journal  According to reports, the union will be open to “all employees and contractors”.

 

I’m not sure whether this is worth cheering about or not. In 2019 the median pay at Alphabet was $258,708 according to the company’s own records and the group is stressing that the “immediate” goal is not collective bargaining or even formal recognition, but being able to speak out without harassment or repercussions that deny career opportunities. Two years ago, readers may recall, there was a walkout against what was termed a culture of sexism and discrimination. Another concern according to the Journal, was Google’s Defense Department work as the DOD had planned to “explore a censored search engine for Chinese Citizens”.

 

Adding to these concerns was the firing in December 2020 of the Eritrean American computer scientist Timnit Gebru. Gebru is considered an expert in the field of ethics as related to Artificial Intelligence and also the, “…co-founder of the group Black in AI, which promotes Black employment and leadership in the field. She's known for a landmark 2018 study that found racial and gender bias in facial recognition software.” Economic Times 12-05-20.

After Gebru announced her termination on twitter,1200 Google employees signed an open letter accusing Google of, "unprecedented research censorship" and accused the company of racism. Naturally Google claimed otherwise and I certainly know very little about the actual details of the case. But we know Google was accused by the NLRB of spying on workers and firing two of them for trying to form a union, activity legal by US law. When we read things like this we need to remember our own working class history, unions were illegal and workers could be charged with conspiracy and violating laws against combination by even discussing raising wages or forming unions. We built unions despite this and there was no NLRB.

Order here

What is interesting is that reports claimed that Google was straying from its original motto of "Don't Be Evil". I don’t believe there is such a thing as evil but if there was, Google would fit that category. I strongly recommend the book, When Google Met Wikileaks, an account of a meeting with Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Julian Assange when he was under house arrest. One of Schmidt’s flunkies, Jared Cohen a former advisor to Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton Assange referred to as Googles “Head of regime change. I don’t want to drift too far here but Assange has not been denied his freedom, hounded and savaged by the mass media for an alleged rape charge. In our world, getting away with rape if you have money is easy; you can even be a serial sexual abuser and become president of the United States. Assange and Wikileaks letting the rest of us know what really happens in society behind phony diplomacy and state department media releases is why they want his head. I am not claiming Assange is without fault. To read more about Assange visit this link.

As for the unionization efforts above. Any human being has the right to work or exist in an environment free of racial prejudice, sexism and any form of bigotry or discrimination. And that these high paid workers are organizing against such treatment has to be supported, though I see them much the same way as the Professional Football Players Association also a part of the AFL-CIO. I can’t imagine that union refusing to cross the picket lines at a scheduled game because hot dog sellers are being abused. Too risky.

 

I was once chastised for defending the despised Hillary Clinton against sexist attacks in the debates and her political life. Sexism must be fought even when it is directed at bourgeois women I argued at the time. To not do so would also weaken working class unity and activism as most working class women would identify with the victim on the basis of having experienced sexual harassment. There are enough political differences between workers and people like Hillary Clinton without a need to resort to sexism and with Condoleeza Rice she has racism to deal with as well. Her politics are enough and what are important.

 

Given the dismal record of the present heads of organized labor when it comes to organizing against the capitalist offensive, preferring instead to bring in already organized formations, it’s hard to imagine this effort in Silicon Valley to come to much. The labor officialdom, including those atop CWA support capitalism and the market and see themselves more as labor brokers with the trade unions as employment agencies and themselves the CEO’s. The dues is the revenue intake. It’s called Business Unionism.

 

What will change all of this is the class battles that lie ahead exacerbated by the pandemic and the change in mass consciousness that is a result of it. The cost of the pandemic and the failure in particular of US capitalism and the market to deal with it will be placed on the shoulder of US workers and the middle class.

 

After the experience of the past year this will not be so easy.

 

For further reading on the trade unions and our leadership crisis:

 

"Work With Capitalism, Not Against It". Why the Labor Leadership Surrenders to the Bosses

 

A Fighting Union Leadership Will be Built by Rank and File Activists

 

DSA, Labor Notes and the Trade Unions.

 

UAW Leadership's Strategy Leads to Another Defeat in Chattanooga Organizing Drive