Topline
GOP Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) On Friday backed efforts to unite Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, backing the union – unusual for a member of the Republican Party, who was traditionally a strong enemy of organized labor. – as an anti-Amazon image in the emerging conservation culture war against Big Tech and “wake up” corporations.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) will address the Senate Adjudication Sub-Committee on Border Security and … [+]
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Key facts
In a USA today op-ed, Rubio argues that Amazon has “decided to wage a culture war against working-class values,” citing the company’s “anti-competitive” behavior against small businesses, which the book denied. sale of transgender counterparts from a conservative author and the banning of nonprofits known as hate agencies by the Southern Poverty Law Center from participating in the AmazonSmile program.
Rubio wrote that Amazon’s “malicious physical behavior” justifies a more “hostile approach to a working relationship” than it would normally support, saying “if Amazon thinks that customers will automatically retains the claim to make the claim after proving that they are such enthusiastic cultural heroes, it is mistaken. ”
Rubio is the first major Republican to support the union effort, joining a series of progressive lawyers and President Joe Biden, who is typically backed by large trade unions.
Republicans coming out in favor of union, especially in the south, are very rare, said John Logan, director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. Forbes, and it comes at a time when Rubio is trying to reshape the Republican party as a worker, scoring political points for opposing Big Tech, a often overdue conservative target.
Quote Cruise
“Amazon employees are not wrong if they feel that union is one option available to protect themselves from bad faith. Today it may be a workplace situation, but tomorrow it may be a requirement for employees to adopt the latest “wake up” human resources from management. , ”Writes Rubio.
Key critics
While Rubio’s support emerges as an employee, critics note that, in the same option, Rubio rejects the Protection of the Right to Organize Act, a bill backed by Democrats who increasing the power of unions in right-wing states. “I see this as an opportunity for him to take sides in the culture war, to say that Republicans are a party of Americans with blue collars, but he doesn’t really support legislation to help employees get free and fair choice when confronting corporations with extraordinary power, ”said Logan, a professor at San Francisco State University.
Amazing info
Surprisingly, Rubio’s support isn’t entirely outside of blue. For years, his grandfather has talked about his earliest political memory: marching the picket line with his father at a Military Workers Union strike in Las Vegas. “I didn’t understand the issues involved then, but I knew that my father and the staff at the other hotels wanted them to be treated fairly for their work,” he wrote in 2018 Atlantic op-ed. In the past, Rubio has been increasingly calling for more rigorous federal labor rules. In the Atlantic, Rubio supports the idea of ”voluntary, tax-paying organizations” receiving federal rights “to administer benefits such as unemployment insurance and employee training programs.”
Key background
The union campaign in Bessemer is a real water step for the American labor movement. If employees choose to form a union, this would lead to the first unified Amazon warehouse in the U.S. It could put off a wave of union drives in other Amazon warehouses and at other major retailers .
Tangent
Amazon is launching an anti-union campaign that involves posting anti-union posters in the bathroom at the warehouse and sending out large text messages against unions to workers, the Washington Post reported. The company has launched an advertising campaign and a special website called #DoItWithoutDues, which argues that “Amazon employees already have a high salary, health care, vision and dental benefits, which as well as a safety committee and appeals process. ”