We're off to the rally, steps away from Broadway shows shut down by spiking COVID, where workers are gathering to demand Amazon recognize the union being organized by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and that its roughly 750,000 US workers be free from Amazons terror tactics to stop their unionizing.
Grueling peak season work requirements, sexual harassment and unsafe super-spreader conditions are fueling the union drive.
Now, just moments before the rally is set to kick off we just the news that two workers at Amazons warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, have died within six hours of each other during their shifts.
At least one of them was told to keep working or hed lose his job, even though he said he needed to go home.
Amazon has been trying to cover up the fact that at least six workers at the Alabama warehouse have died in the last year.
This news comes on the heels of the recent deaths of Amazon workers in Edwardsville, Illinois, where six were killed when the Dec. 10 tornado demolished the warehouse " after management would not allow workers to keep their phones for emergency weather alerts nor allow them to leave in the face of the danger.
Fired Amazon worker Chris Smalls just told me that he received word that dozens of workers organized by Amazonians United Chicagoland walked off the job in two locations, Cicero, Illinois, and Gage Park, citing punishing hours and unsafe COVID-19 conditions.
Amazon workers are on the move, in fact Chris Smalls will announce breaking news at the rally of a stunning win by Amazon workers that mandates that Amazon stop and desist persecuting the workers attempts to organize unions at Amazons 110 facilities in the US!
Ok were ready to rally in Times Square with the Amazon workers and their allies for a union!
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
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