Jacobin Radio w/ Suzi Weissman: Worker Victory on Staten Island w/ John Logan
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2022
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Suzi talks to John Logan, labor historian and expert on the anti-union industry, about the historic victory for Amazon workers on Staten Island, who voted on April 1st to form the first US Amazon union. The new Amazon Labor Union won against the retailing giant whose profits have skyrocketed during the pandemic. This changes everything, and we get John Logan's analysis of the scope of the victory and the challenges to come.
Ilya Budraitskis, who just published Dissidents among Dissidents: Ideology, Politics and the Left in Post-Soviet Russia, joins us to discuss the state of Russia's war on Ukraine, now in its second month. We get Ilya’s understanding of Putin’s battle to control the minds of Russians at home—closing all independent media, pushing a false narrative, and imposing draconian penalties for even calling this a war. Ilya sees these as moves toward establishing a real dictatorship that depends on economic, political, social, and now even psychological control over the population.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Jacobin Radio, I'm Suzy Weisman. On today's program, we celebrate the historic |
| 0:13.7 | victory for Amazon workers in Staten Island who voted on April 1st to form the first U.S. |
| 0:20.5 | Amazon Union winning against the retailing giant whose profits have skyrocketed during |
| 0:26.4 | the pandemic. John Logan, labor historian and expert on the anti-union industry, joins |
| 0:32.8 | us to analyze the scope of this victory, the challenges to come, and how this changes everything. |
| 0:40.4 | We then turn to less good news, the ongoing horrific war rushes waging in Ukraine. |
| 0:46.1 | Ilga Boudradsky's author and activist joins us to discuss the state of the war nearly 40 days in, |
| 0:53.7 | which Putin is losing politically and militarily. We get Ilga's understanding of Putin's battle |
| 0:59.6 | to control the minds of Russians at home, closing all independent media, pushing a false narrative, |
| 1:05.5 | imposing draconian penalties for even calling this a war. Ilga sees these as moves toward establishing |
| 1:12.0 | a real dictatorship, bloody and irrational, and one that depends on economic, political, social, |
| 1:17.7 | and now even psychological control over the population. All this when our program returns in just a |
| 1:24.0 | moment. This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weisman and very pleased to have John Logan back with us. |
| 1:38.9 | This is a very good occasion. I'm going to tell you why. We're marking an historic victory. |
| 1:45.5 | Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York voted to unionize on Friday, April 1st. This is |
| 1:53.1 | no April Fool's Day news. This is the first successful organizing effort in the United States |
| 1:59.9 | to unionize Amazon, the retail giant that employs more than a million workers in the United |
| 2:06.1 | States. And that doesn't count all of the contract drivers and others that it employs. |
| 2:11.9 | So the warehouse workers in Staten Island voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favor of unionizing out of, |
| 2:23.4 | and we'll ask John about this, 8,325 eligible workers. So 55% for 44% against making it literally |
| 2:33.8 | impossible to contest the results. Although there are some ballots to be challenged, they are not |
| 2:40.5 | enough to really change the outcome. And Chris Smalls, the Amazon worker who was fired for pressing |
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