Some Younger Amazon Workers in Bessemer, New to Unions, Are Still Undecided
Amazon worker Jennifer Bates, 48, stands outside the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union local in Birmingham, Ala., on March 6, 2020. Bates has been helping lead the BHM1 union push by trying to win her over younger colleagues to “Vote Yes.”
Photo: Daniel Medina
“My belief is that no matter the outcome, the labor movement is alive again.”
Over the course of reporting with workers in Bessemer earlier this month, both supporters and opponents of the union acknowledged that the outcome of the vote will not fall neatly along age lines.
Yet the organizing effort has been largely led by older workers, many of whom worked in union jobs before coming to Amazon. And many younger BHM1 workers have never interacted with a union over the course of their working lives and may have little understanding of the role a union has traditionally played in the workplace — a consequence, labor experts say, of a decadeslong assault on organized labor in the Deep South.
Read the report here.
NYPD Disappeared Black Lives Matter Protesters into Detention for Days at a Time. Lawmakers Want to End the Practice
“The law doesn’t have a looter exception, it doesn’t have a Covid-19 exception. This was deliberate, intentional punishment for protesting.”
IN EARLY JUNE, hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters languished for days in cramped New York City jail cells. Stuck in holding pens without masks and exposed to soiled conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic, they were unable to reach loved ones or lawyers. The protesters were effectively disappeared into New York City’s detention system.
In Albany, a progressive Democrat from Queens said his new bill would ensure that New Yorkers are never again disappeared into detention.
Read the piece here.
As Amazon, Walmart, and Others Profit Amid Coronavirus Crisis, Their Essential Workers Plan Unprecedented Strike
“If I miss one paycheck, it would mean I lose my vehicle, I lose my place to live. I lose everything.”
AN UNPRECEDENTED COALITION of workers from some of America’s largest companies will strike on Friday. Workers from Amazon, Instacart, Whole Foods, Walmart, Target, and FedEx are slated to walk out on work, citing what they say is their employers’ record profits at the expense of workers’ health and safety during the coronavirus pandemic.
The employees will call out sick or walk off the job during their lunch break, according to a press release set to be published by organizers on Wednesday. In some locations, rank-and-file union members will join workers outside their warehouses and storefronts to support the demonstrations.
Read the piece here.
As the Lebanon Uprising Hits 100-Day Mark, Protesters Allege Torture By Security Forces
“The torture and beating ended when I spat out one of my molars and blood came out of my mouth.”
ALI BASAL AND Samer Mazeh had just left a protest on the Ring Bridge in central Beirut on the night of November 14. Suddenly, they were swarmed by a small group of unidentified men. Within earshot of the packed bars on the popular Gemmayzeh Street, one of the men tried to arrest Mazeh as Basal demanded to know who they were. Minutes later, an army vehicle arrived and a man claiming to be a military intelligence officer jumped out.
“The officer was forcefully raising my arms above my head,” Basal told The Intercept, “and another came on a motorcycle and hit me in the back.” Basal continued, “I felt a pop in my back.”
Adopted and Undocumented: He Grew Up Thinking He Was American — Until He Was Deported
“I just felt so wronged by the situation. How could I be told all my life that I was an American and then be thrown out of my own country at 35?”
MAURICIO OVIEDO SOTO was 6 years old when a judge in a Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, circuit court officially recognized his adoption. With the stroke of a pen, he became Mauricio Cappelli, taking the surname of his new American father.
Nearly 32 years later, on March 12, 2018, Cappelli stepped off a commercial flight at Juan Santamaría International Airport in San José, Costa Rica, in the country of his birth. He was still processing the last 24 hours: Early that morning, officers entered his holding cell in a South Texas immigration detention center and told him he would be deported that day to his native country for the second time in his life.
“They came in to my cell and told me to quickly pack up my stuff,” Cappelli recently told The Intercept in a phone call from Costa Rica. “I boarded my flight still in my jail clothes.”
What kind of resistance? The battle for New York Attorney General opens up a rift
“I think that when it comes to the role of money in politics, this attorney general’s race, in particular, is one of the most impactful decisions we can make for the state and for the country.”
“We want ICE out of our communities,” said Nieves Padilla, Brooklyn coordinator for Make the Road, a political organizing group that advocates for immigrant rights. “No one is safe. No one is off limits. Everyone is afraid of Donald Trump.”
Just how afraid, and just what they want done, is the question shaping New York’s attorney general race. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, running on a generic campaign of broad opposition to Trump but cooperation with the state’s GOP and its financial interest, is polling just ahead of two progressives, Zephyr Teachout and Letitia James. Teachout has been precise in how she intends to target Trump and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, while James has been hampered by her links to the governor.
DSA’S Julia Salazar is headed to the New York State Senate
“So many people have been displaced...we need progressives like Julia to change the status quo.”
Weeks of intense scrutiny over Salazar’s personal life led to a string of news stories that accused her of misleading voters on her immigration status, Jewish heritage, and socio-economic background while growing up in Florida. The nonstop, high-profile scandals seemed to have had virtually no effect at the ballot box. If anything, her supporters rallied harder for her.
In many ways, this was a race of two realities: the “Twitterverse,” where Salazar’s portrayal of her past was painstakingly dissected; and real life, where voter after voter in her rapidly gentrifying district worried about evictions and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
It was in the end a two-person race, and Salazar, whatever her background, spoke to more people. “I think voters are smart and they’re interested in voting for candidates who they know will fight for them and for their interests,” Salazar told The Intercept. “Voters know that we, on the outset, ran this campaign on the issues.”
“Undocumented youth are not bargaining chips,” say DREAMERS arrested on Capitol Hill
“Our lives are at stake,” said Andiola, a former presidential campaign staffer for Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in an interview with The Intercept minutes after she left jail. “Undocumented youth are not bargaining chips.”
ERIKA ANDIOLA BREATHED a sign of relief as she walked outside of a Washington, D.C. jail on Wednesday night. She had spent five days there but avoided her worst nightmare — being handed over to immigration authorities.
Andiola, 30, made national headlines when she was arrested on Capitol Hill last Friday along with a group of Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors who won protections under an Obama-era program rescinded by President Donald Trump. Capitol Police arrested the seven Dreamers and one ally, after they staged a sit-in outside the offices of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla. Andiola and her fellow protesters were on a hunger strike while in jail, and her Facebook post about being detained went viral over the weekend.