USA-GERMANY Amazon : Stop firing ! Start listening!
Seven workers, men and women, have been fired by the Amazon management in the U.S. over the past few weeks on false pretences, because they had defended their rights and openly stated their views.
Some of them have been participated in the “Amazon Employees For Climate Justice” initiative and, from Seattle, organised a worldwide campaign aimed at driving Amazon, one of the world’s worst polluters, to change its policies climate-wise.
At the same time, they established contacts with workers in shipping centres. In 2019, they visited the warehouses in Bad Hersfeld and Leipzig in Germany, among others.
The other workers organised shipping centre employees in the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic, to obtain measures of protection against the virus. During this struggle they called for strikes. The motive given for firing them was that they were accused of failing to comply with anti-Covid-19 protection measures.
While in Europe Amazon has, as a rule, been forced to give up harassing strike organisers, in the U.S. the attacks against those in charge are direct.
Trade unionists can respond in one way only: total solidarity with the colleagues who have been fired. That is why, across the world, Amazon workers demand the cancellation of all the firings that target colleagues who acted for the defence of their rights and who freely expressed their view! They were merely making use of their fundamental working-class rights when calling for strikes to impose protective measures against the Covid-19 pandemics. They were making use of the rights for which trade unions were created, and for which they are still today indispensable.
This is why Amazon workers have launched a campaign on this issue. The point is to take photos with a placard reading: “Amazon: Stop firing! Start listening!” to post them on social networks, and send them to “Amazon workers International”.
As workers at Amazon, we would like the “International Workers’ Committee Against War and Exploitation – For the Workers’ International” to publicise this campaign worldwide and, in this way, to give its support to the legitimate demand of cancellation of the firings, and to defend the right of workers to strike and freely express their opinions and not at Amazon only.