Ocasio-Cortez to Amazon union workers: Victory is ‘just the beginning’ | Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Progressive Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Amazon.com The first union workers in New York on Sunday that their victory was “the first domino to fall” in what I expected to be a wave of similar votes for representation across the country.

The Left Democrat joined Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on stage on Staten Island to celebrate the historic achievement and call for more workers. Amazon Facilities in the United States are following suit.

“What happened here…what you guys did on Staten Island was just the beginning. It was the first domino to fall,” she said, noting that workers at a second Amazon sorting facility in the New York area were Vote on Monday.

“We have another election tomorrow, and we will support them in that. The day after that and the day after that all the way. But what we need Amazon to do first and foremost is recognize the union that won the election.”

Amazon has so far refused to acknowledge the vote at the Staten Island Fulfillment Center, after accusing it of doing so Intimidation and persecution of workers During the election campaign with anti-union messages and spending millions of dollars trying to ensure that the vote failed.

Immediately after the result, Amazon, owned by the second richest man in the world Jeff Bezos, whose personal fortune Forbes estimated it at $170 billionto court to try to annul the result.

“First of all, Amazon, Jeff Bezos, everybody, we have to recognize the fact that they did this thing, and they won union territory,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“You have to treat our people properly. You give our workers a bathroom break, you can make sure that you treat people well and give them solid healthcare benefits, that they don’t get a three-hour commute to and from work, that they are able to buy a house they can live in. People won’t sleep in their cars in order to work at Amazon.

“This is all insulting and unfair and has no place in New York City and we’re going to change that, and here our workers here are going to change that.”

Sanders has been equally tough on Amazon’s treatment of workers. “When you get a company that makes huge profits, you know what, you can pay your workers good wages, provide good benefits, and you can have decent working conditions, not what you got now,” he said.

to treat Chris SmallsSanders, the union organizer behind the successful New York vote, and fellow activist attendees added: “You may not know this, but you’ve been an inspiration to millions of workers across this country, who have looked at you and said, These guys on Staten Island encountered an extraordinarily powerful company. If they can do it on Staten Island, we can do it all over this country.”

Sanders also shot Democratic centrist Senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Senema, who he said are “sabotaging” America’s working class by opposing Joe Biden’s social reform agenda.

Although he did not mention them by name, it was clear that he was attacking the Democrats who objected to Biden’s package to Build Better for Social Spending, welfare aid and climate measures. prevent his passage through Congress.

“To get past it we need at least 50 Democrats Who would stand with the working class in this country, we don’t have that,” he said.

“We have two people who are busy sabotaging the agenda of the working class.”