ALU Seeks Historic Win at Albany Warehouse
The Amazon Labor Union shocked the world on April 1 when it overcame rampant union-busting to decisively win a union vote at Amazon’s massive JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island. Since then, the union has been flooded with queries from workers at other Amazon warehouses across the country. Starting next Wednesday, workers at a warehouse outside Albany, New York will vote on whether to become the second ALU local to unionize. The Indy’s Amba Guerguerian has been talking with ALB 1’s core organizers about their motivations and how they are responding to the company’s anti-union tactics. She filed this report.
Amazon Labor Union Update: Workers to Vote in Albany & Fire in Staten Island
For some of our previous ALU coverage, click here, here, here and here. To listen to cancer patient and recently fired ALB 1 worker Michael Verrastro talk on The Indypendent News Hour radio show about why he is fighting to ensure his coworkers have a union, click here.
Speaking of union organizing and the struggle to win a more just world, the 11th annual Workers Unite Film Festival begins this Friday at Cinema Village Theater in Lower Manhattan. They will also be holding an activist filmmaker boot camp on Oct. 15. Be the media!
On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams announced the City would relocate the migrant tent camp it had erected in the Orchard Beach parking lot to Randall’s Island. The move followed viral videos showing the parking lot flooding after a mere half-inch of rain. While the City’s faltering response to the migrant influx continues, we look at three grassroots groups that are working to aid migrants plus an innovative arts project spreading a hopeful, pro-migrant message.
Mutual Aid Groups Mobilize in Response to Migrant Influx
By Amba Guerguerian
Welcoming the Stranger: An Interview with New York Immigration Coalition’s Murad Awawdeh
By Renée Feltz
Russians Helping Ukrainians? LGBTQ+ Group Leads the Way
By Eleanor J. Bader
Little Amal Comes to NYC
By Jessica Max Stein
The Indypendent News Hour Update
We’ll be back on the air with our weekly radio show next Tuesday 5-6 p.m. on WBAI-99.5 FM and streaming on wbai.org. The show is also rebroadcast Wednesday’s 5-6 a.m. Two recent interviews we recommend are ones we did with Ariadna Phillips of South Bronx Mutual Aid and Michael Verrastro of ALU’s Local 2 near Albany.
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