Marble Falls      We’re part of a coalition called “Make Amazon Pay.”  Black Friday is the annual action day.  In India, where ACORN’s affiliate has been organizing and agitating around Amazon warehouses in East Delhi, we saddle up as part of the campaign in a big way.  The “Make Amazon Pay” organizers say there are planned actions that include: “a massive Amazon delivery driver strike in Italy; a work stoppage across Amazon warehouses in France; demonstrations at the construction site of new Amazon regional offices in South Africa; garment worker protests across Bangladesh and Cambodia. In the United States, the Athena Coalition will be holding digital and in-person #MakeAmazonPay actions targeting Whole Foods and Amazon, a town hall about the future of worker organizing in California, and a worker panel in Illinois on supply chain disruptions.”

All of that is powerful and for the good, but it does feel a little bit like throwing rocks at a passing car, mainly because Amazon continues to grow more powerful by leaps and bounds. Despite the fact that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were Amazon’s own marketing creations, but sadly, the day after the American Thanksgiving is following in the footsteps of Mothers’ Day, Christmas, and other events as a commercial extravaganza.  I’ve gotten Black Friday email promotions from sources as diverse as an airline touting cheaper trips to Greece and a symphony hawking its swag.  Encouragingly, there are some reports that Black Friday has become “less fun,” which never occurred to me in the first place, and more people were “sleeping in,” which we should try to claim as a victory for workers and protestors, regardless.

The Black Friday claims by unions seem a little thin against a terrible background in our efforts to organize Amazon.  The one union victory is still mired in union negotiations.  Internal conflict within the independent union was discouraging.  Workers have both voted in new local officers, moving away from their charismatic organizer and leader, and ditched their independent status by affiliating with the Teamsters.  An NLRB administrative law judge has ordered a third election at the warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama for RWDSU, an affiliate of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), but that’s surely going to be appealed by the company and drug out farther and farther.  Further good decisions by an NLRB, likely to be gut rehabbed by the Trump team, will make any recourse through the agency increasingly doubtful.  Seeing blood in the water, more companies are challenging the NLRB’s right to even operate within corporate prerogatives and finding succor in Trump’s favorite appeals court, the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, dominated by his first term appointees.  A recent NLRB order on joint employer status for Amazon’s subcontracted delivery workers in California is also not likely to survive.  Jeff Bezos’ decision to pull the Washington Post endorsement of Harris out of the paper at the last minute, was a move to get him in the queue for some payoffs, since he didn’t want Elon Musk to get too far ahead of him with Trump.

It’s not a pretty picture as our prospects dim in the US with Amazon, while others seemingly jump on their bandwagon.  My humble, piddling suggestion is that we need to be less indirect and get closer to the workers on Black Friday.  Where there’s a delivery substation, a warehouse, or anything nearby, we need to pick a time to show solidarity on Black Friday so workers know directly that we’re all about their well-being and wages.  Even as I say this, I despair.  For too many, the day after Thanksgiving is almost like Labor Day, just another holiday and an opportunity not for solidarity, but maybe for sleeping in from the work of overeating from the previous day.

There are many reasons for calling this day, Black Friday.