Last week, a volunteer with The Worker interviewed a former Amazon worker in NYC who was fired in January, along with almost 20 other workers, following the cross-country strike last December.
The interview took place 4 days after an Amazon worker, Leony Salcedo-Chevalier, died during his shift at another NYC Amazon warehouse (JFK8) after being struck by a reversing truck – following the death, workers from two successive shifts walked out in protest, shutting down the facility and railing against the unsafe and frantic working conditions pushed by Amazon while demanding, and receiving, full pay for the missed shifts. Amazon said that Salcedo-Chevalier and the driver both were subcontractors rather than employees proper, their common union-busting refrain, here used to dodge responsibility.
How did you get fired?
After work, they called me at around 8 or 9pm. They try to do it over the phone, but I asked them to send me the message, you know, just so I can save the information. I sent an email in to HR. They said they’ll get back to me by the end of the day, but I never got that email. I didn’t even bother asking them any more questions.
Why do you think you were fired?
Because I was in the union, and my face was all over this stuff. They fire people for the fear factor. You kick a couple people out, and others will fall into line.
How are you responding to this, and what is your goal?
I’m going to try to hold Amazon accountable. In the least they’ll probably try to reinstate us, just to keep us quiet. They’re filing labor charges against Amazon to basically show that we do work for Amazon. What’s messed up is that even with the person that died recently, Amazon stated that he was not an employee and said he was employed by a third party company. I hope Amazon is held accountable for their actions.
Workers are being laid off in different industries across the country because of overproduction and decreasing demand. How do you think workers should respond to these mass layoffs?
Put more pressure on [the companies], because as we’ve seen, we did all that strike stuff, and we actually got a little something out of it. And if you don’t try nothing, you’re never gonna achieve nothing. When I was striking, I wasn’t just doing it for myself. I was doing it for the next man that would come in my shoes when I’m gone and like, we’re already at that situation. We built up to that strike for close to a year. It was like one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I actually felt like I was doing something important. Shoot, if they do go again next year, I’m probably going to be there.
How do you think workers can pressure companies?
It’s persistence. You gotta keep striking every once in a while, you can’t just do it once a year because they know it’s gonna happen, all they gotta do is just hire flex drivers to cover up and all of that stuff. That’s exactly what happened last year during the strike, they paid flex drivers a lot of money just to get the packages out, and they pay millions for the union busters. If they don’t know that we’re going to be striking, it’s actually going to hurt them because they won’t be prepared for them. I’m pretty sure the repercussions will be a lot worse with those, but, you gotta do it. You can’t just lay down.
Do you see any potential in combining different worker struggles together?
I would like to see that happen. They say that unions aren’t the same as they were before, that they’re not beneficial. They almost just seem like HR. Filling their quota, basically, to maintain their stature within the company and stuff. Because the more companies that they have, the more funds and stuff that unions are going to have.
A worker died at the Staten Island warehouse last week. What are your thoughts on this?
I’m not surprised at all. I don’t know the exact details of what happened, but my best guess would have been some type of rushing accident or something like that. If we didn’t have such a high fucking load, we wouldn’t be rushing like that and putting our lives at risk. I felt like I was gonna die a couple times myself. It took me like a good two months to physically recover after I was let go of. I was actually limping around, it took like two months for it to get back normal. The day after I got let go of, my body just crashed. Once my body knew it was over, it released everything. I couldn’t get out of bed for like a week. When I’m working, I’m constantly moving, so I don’t have the time to stop and feel tired. So when I actually had time to stop and feel tired, I felt 2.5 years of tired.
How do you think workers should respond to this?
We can start like a day or two strike in every warehouse, so that it won’t just get pushed under the rug like they’re trying to do right now. We know what’s going on. It’s not right for somebody to fucking go through something like that.
Do you have any advice for workers who are afraid of unionizing and striking out of fear of retaliation?
My advice would be, know your worth. At first, I was a little skeptical myself about it. But eventually, after going through everything I’ve went through, I was just like, I don’t even care what happens to me. I’m just going to be part of this and I’m going to try to push as hard as I can. It was mainly how I physically felt. Like, I’d rather fight for this than just keep letting them suck at me every freaking day. It was like more of a fight or flight thing. You don’t officially have to be outside representing, you can still do it behind the scenes and cheer your people on. But when it comes time to show, you gotta show.
Image: Queens NY Amazon drivers walk out in September 2024 in the lead-up to the nation-wide Amazon strikes in December 2024, Teamsters social media
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