Labor unions going global for workers rights
I've got a new article posted in the Center for International Policy's Journal on how unions are going global in the fight for workers rights.
I’ve just been published in the Center for International Policy’s journal where I write about the global labor movement, check it out here.
Boiling in Amazon’s warehouses
The city boiled as the unrelenting sun cooked Manesar in India’s northern state of Haryana. Temperatures soared to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas of India on May 16th this year as a deadly heat wave swept the region.
At 4:30pm, a manager inside of Amazon’s Manesar warehouse called a meeting. The meeting was, according to the manager, intended to motivate the workers to push their efforts and increase productivity despite the heat. To accomplish this, a worker testified in The Independent, the manager asked the warehouse workers to make a pledge: workers “will not take any breaks, we will not stop to drink water or go to the bathroom until we meet our targets.”
The inhumane pledge came as the same worker reported shifts of organizing products for 10 hours a day with only two breaks of 30 minutes to rest. While the facility has been outfitted with fans and coolers, she said that their impact is “negligible”, “walk just 10 steps away and you can barely feel any difference. The areas where we work are typically between 30-35C on any given day.”
Amazon has since said that the pledge was an “unfortunate and isolated incident”, but the case has catalyzed a renewed discussion of the brutal labor conditions in Amazon warehouses….
Want to read more? Find the rest of the article here.