Destroy Amazon: Update on the Tech Dystopia - It's Going Down

Source - Destroy Amazon: Update on the Tech Dystopia - It's Going Down 7.6.2019

Seattle anarchist paper The Transmetropolitian Review looks at continued acts of defiance and resistance to Amazon.

Who would wish to reappropriate nuclear power plants, Amazon’s warehouses, the expressways, ad agencies, high-speed trains…auditing firms, nanotechnologies, supermarkets and their poisonous merchandise? Who imagines a people’s takeover of industrial farming operations where a single man plows 400 hectares of eroded ground at the wheel of his megatractor piloted via satellite? No one with any sense.

-The Invisible Committee, Now, 2017

Setting The Stage

Since we last wrote about Amazon, the situation has grown much worse. Just over a year ago, we released our eighth IRL issue, subtitled The Amazon Issue. It was our most popular print issue and we could barely keep up with the demand at our usual distro-points (cafes, bars, corners-stores, etc.), a reminder that physical newspapers could still have an impact, even in tech-saturated Seattle. The issue was released just before the 2018 May Day march and accompanied several other initiatives aimed at making Amazon the focus of popular anger.

On the day of the demonstration, all of the left seemed united against the corporation and its demented overlord Jeff Bezos, with even the mega-unions taking a stand (albeit a limited one). Of all the actions taken against Amazon on May 1st, 2018, it was a lone woman from Tacoma who brought us the most joy. Dressed all in black, her face covered in a mask, and with no one to help her, this woman ran up to Jeff Bezos’ little balls (the Amazon Spheres) and smashed out one of its over-priced panes of glass, ultimately leading to her arrest. Once this action hit the media, even the corrupt and boot-licking Stranger newspaper called on the state governor to pardon her, a first for this pro-capitalist publication. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine The Stranger supporting an anarchist, which just goes to show how widely this popular anger at Amazon had spread across Seattle.

Smashing the Bezos Balls

Between 2017 and 2018, we decided to focus all of our efforts against Amazon after bald-headed Bezos announced his Hunger Games-style contest where different North American cities would grovel for the chance to host his Amazon HQ2. Having experienced first-hand what HQ1 did to Seattle (detailed in a previous article), we were more than fired-up to ruin the man-child’s happy-fun-time. While this might seem like an easy task in mid-2019, it certainly wasn’t. Thanks to Donald Trump, our efforts in 2017 were met with both liberal hostility and leftist ambivalence. With the president constantly attacking Amazon and Bezos in his tweets, our efforts were seen as either Republican Party agent-provocateur-ism or proof we were secret Russian agents. Given that Bezos owned The Washington Post, one of the most outspoken anti-Trump media outlets, we were clearly out to undermine the liberal “resistance” by attacking the Amazon CEO. Given that Trump was in an all-out feud with the CIA, a long-time friend and ally of Amazon, we were obviously working with the president by critiquing Amazon and the CIA. If you think this sounds stupid, you’re definitely using your brain.

Despite this absurd level of resistance to our efforts, the tide began to turn during the spring of 2018. As the grovelling competition for HQ2 became more obviously pathetic, rebels in different cities began to catch on to the smell of bullshit. The first city outside of Seattle to initiate hostilities was Atlanta, and within a few months their efforts had garnered news-headlines, generalized disquiet, and channeled popular discontent against the Amazon leviathan. By then, major strike-waves had hit Amazon fulfillment centers in Europe, reminding us all that direct resistance was possible at the companies main logistic choke-points, its most vulnerable locations. There were a few instances of direct action and agitation around Seattle-area fulfillment centers, along with a few fruitless efforts toward infiltrating these places of work, but they largely went nowhere.

Amazon protest, Spain, March 2018

Outside of the mega-unions, there are few groups capable or willing to organize the Amazon fulfillment centers, a seemingly daunting task. While certain workers in Minnesota and New York have recently met with some success, there simply isn’t enough time to form militant worker’s organizations inside the fulfillment centers before they’re completely automated. At best, the IWW might create a few anti-capitalist locals strong enough to disrupt the shipping network, while the mega-unions might still be capable of raising wages for the last humans still employed in these warehouses. Regardless, the proverbial clock is now ticking upwards to midnight, and the future we’ve all dreaded is swiftly approaching. But we’ll get to that later, after the headlines.

Against the possibility of communism, against any possibility of happiness, there stands a hydra with two heads. On the public stage each one of them makes a show of being the sworn enemy of the other. On one side, there is the program for the fascistic restoration of unity, and on the other, there is the global power of the merchants of infrastructure—Google as much as Vinci, Amazon as much as Veolia. Those who believe that it’s one or the other will have them both. Because the great builders of infrastructure have the means for which the fascists only have the folkloric discourse.

-The Invisible Committee, Now, 2017

Opening The Curtain

After the May Day 2018 demonstrations had come and gone over the streets of Seattle, it was clear that Amazon was now seen as a public-enemy far outside anarchist circles. Anger against the HQ2 was rising from city to city, along with dozens of voices critiquing Amazon’s ruthless practices. In this moment, the leftists politicians of the Seattle City Council made their final stand against Lord Bezos and his greedy minions. Summoning every ounce of their spines, these elected officials passed a head-tax on the major corporations in the city, including Amazon, a law that would have generated revenue to build affordable housing for low-income and homeless residents. For a brief moment, it seemed like electoral-democracy had pulled a coup on us anarchists, proving that voting still mattered in the corrupt United States and affirming that leftists politicians could restrain the scrupulous tech-companies. Their hopes were quickly dashed.

Trade-unionists defending Amazon construction, Seattle, 2018

All it took to cancel this tax was Amazon pausing construction on one of its HQ1 skyscrapers, a move that threw the conservative trade-unions into a frenzy. In an ill-fated photo-op, the socialist City Council-woman and her party held a protest rally outside the glass Bezos Balls, only to be met by a counter-rally of hard-hat wearing construction workers. This spectacle of socialists vs. workers was enough to explode the heavy contradictions in the air, dooming the taxation effort. Soon enough, the leftists in City Council withdrew from the battlefield, canceled the head-tax, and hung their heads in defeat. While some of the more pathetic Seattle liberals droned on about “damaging the anti-Trump resistance,” it became clear to many naive leftists that democracy didn’t stand a chance against Amazon. Although this hyper-local episode might not have registered amid the national static, its implications were felt deeply within the Democratic Party establishment.

In November 2018, the long awaited results of the HQ2 contest were announced. Members of our editorial collective had privately predicted that Amazon would build its new facility near the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a logical move related solely to infrastructure. As one intrepid journalist from The Atlantic exposed, Amazon had already built a handful of anonymous data centers near spook-central, a site positioned in between where some of the main trans-Atlantic fiber-optic cables make landfall, allowing the CIA (and other agencies) to took scoop up massive amounts of internet traffic. By most accounts, Amazon Web Services account for at least 1/3 of all internet traffic in the US, while more recent estimates put this number closer to ½, if not higher.

Amazon data center near CIA HQ

Similarly, the location of HQ1 in Seattle was not chosen at random, it was selected for its proximity to a main fiber-optic node located below the twin-cylinders of the Westin Hotel, just a few blocks from HQ1. Long famous for gracing the cover of a Modest Mouse album, this hotel hosts one of the most important nodes of the internet and has long been a public secret across Seattle. According to a handy Wikileaks mapof Amazon facilities posted in 2018, a portion of this node belongs to the company under the name SEA4. Given all of this information, it was no surprise that Arlington, Virginia was chosen as the site of HQ2.

What did surprise us was Amazon announcing there were two lucky winners of the HQ2 contest. Not only would Arlington be graced with an economic atom-bomb, but Queens, New York would also be subjected to Amazon’s merciless gentrification and displacement. While cities like Atlanta breathed a sigh of relief, Queens braced itself for the impending invasion, although it didn’t throw in the towel and admit instant defeat (like Seattle). For the next months, radicals of various stripes began a campaign to block the HQ2 in Queens and prevent their community from being destroyed, an effort which made headlines across the US and inspired everyone who’d seen their own cities destroyed by the tech-leviathans. In the midst of these efforts, a scandal suddenly rocked Amazon and catapulted its deranged sultan into the media spotlight: Jeff Bezos had been cheating on his wife, Mackenzie Bezos.

Protest against Amazon HQ2, NY, 2019

While it might seem inconsequential, this affair had major implications. Firstly, it signaled that Jeff Bezos would soon lose the dubious distinction of being the richest man on Earth, given that Washington State divorce laws entitled his wife to half their fortune (making her the fourth richest woman on Earth). Secondly, Mackenzie Bezos had famously defended her husband when the book-length hit-piece The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon was published in 2013, an expose that unveiled the disgusting history of Jeff Bezos and Amazon. His loyal wife gave the book a one-star review on Amazon and claimed her husband was a good man in the review, an assertion she possibly came to regret. In January 2019, it was revealed that Jeff Bezos had been having an affair with Lauren Sanchez, a television host for the Fox network. Shortly before this revelation became public, Jeff and Mackenzie Bezos announced their divorce in a joint statement, hoping the scandalous affair wouldn’t reach the media, although the National Enquirer had different ideas.

This media-organ owned by a long-time friend of Donald Trump quickly published details of the affair, along with creepy texts from Lord Bezos where he referred to Lauren Sanchez as “alive girl.” In addition to leaking lurid selfies and partial dick-pics sent from the idiot man-child, the National Enquirer made Jeff Bezos the laughing-stock of the media and set off a political battle which included private detectives, Donald Trump, the Washington Post, and the Democratic Party. The liberal anti-Trump “resistance” tried to make Jeff Bezos into a victim of pro-Trump forces, an effort which was mildly successful, given the majority of the media coverage. Despite trying to pass himself off as the victim of right-wing blackmailing and extortion, King Bezos was still forced to read the writing on the wall and realize he was widely hated, along with his beloved Amazon.

While screen-shots of his imbecilic sexts were still circulating the internet, Amazon announced it was pulling out of the HQ2 deal in Queens. On February 14, 2018, the company stated on its blog that “a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project.” Although the long and patient work required to scuttle this deal came from community organizations and radical groups, it was easier for Amazon to blame the politicians, thereby catapulting them to fame. Most notable among them was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a Democratic Socialist and senator for the Democratic Party. As the organizers of the anti-Amazon campaign celebrated their victory, AOC was made into a spectacular villain or hero, depending on who you asked. In either case, responsibility for scuttling the deal was placed on her shoulders, not the people who made it happen.

For us editors, the victory in Queens was inspiring and joyful, especially after what we witnessed in Seattle. It was certainly gratifying to see the Democratic Party mayor of NYC and the Democratic Party governor of New York squirm like maggots when the deal fell through, but our joy was cut short when AOC willfully basked in the spotlight, thereby bolstering her electoral ideology and recuperating an autonomous anti-Amazon initiative that had taken almost two years to build. Ever since she famously championed her time as a bar-tender, it was clear that AOC existed solely to salvage the conception of fair-capitalism and instill her fellow millenials with the delusional hope that, if they only worked hard enough bar-tending, they could not only become a senator and “change the system,” they might even become an astronaut. In this regard, she represents the last chance for a dying Democratic Party establishment to reinvigorate capitalism and make it more youthful, hip, and able to tweet like a pro. Just because our opponents in the right-wing of capitalism despise someone like AOC, it doesn’t mean we should all support AOC and her left-wing of capitalism, especially when both sides want her to be the focus of everyone’s attention. Now that we’ve become sufficiently distracted from the issue at hand, it’s time to move on to the most disturbing part of this article.

Taking The Stage

From the extreme left to the extreme right, there’s no lack of bullshitters who endlessly promise us “a return to full employment”…It’s now necessary to be able to monitor en masse all our activities, all our communications, all our gestures, to place cameras and sensors everywhere, because wage-earning discipline no longer suffices for controlling the population. It’s only to a population totally under control that one can dream of offering a universal basic income.

-The Invisible Committee, Now, 2017

While the residents of Queens were able to stop the Amazon invasion, their peers in Arlington weren’t so lucky. Queens has long been a rebellious place and NYC still hosts thousands of radicals, as it has for over a century, making this region more resistant to blatant colonization. This wasn’t the case for Arlington, Virginia, a city that had the unfortunate reputation of hosting the Pentagon, which isn’t exactly a bastion of resistance. A coalition of local radicals organized to oppose this deal, but their efforts hardly stood a chance in this highly militarized hell-scape. Since the HQ2 deal was announced, housing costs in Arlington have risen close to 20%, while home vacancies dropped by nearly 50%, fulfilling all the predictions made by critics of HQ2. With the deal finalized, Amazon will soon move into a new luxury micro-city called National Landing, positioned just south of the Pentagon and across the river from Washington DC. Conveniently for Jeff Bezos, his new HQ is close to the Washington Post and within driving distance of his new DC home. From here, he can more easily masturbate to screenshots of Donald Trump’s tweets and stare longingly at the White House.

With the bald-headed scumbag now dreaming of becoming the president, his dick-pics still floating across the web, and his former wife having left him to his misery, Jeff Bezos has now gone into full-psychotic-overdrive. His first move after this series of disasters was to attend his very own MARS Conference in March 2019, a symposium dedicated to Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space. At this annual invite-only event, Jeff Bezos flew around in an octo-copter, played beer-pong with a robot, giggled at crop-pollinating drones, salivated to Lockheed Martin space-engines, and gazed in wonder at all the luxury gizmos he can afford to buy.

Bezos giggling at drone, MARS Conference, 2019

This MARS Conference has been held since 2016, and at each opening Jeff Bezos has done something cringe-worthy: in 2017, he piloted a massive robot and flexed it arms, while in 2018 he went on a stroll with a war-dog from Boston Dynamics. He was a bit more restrained in 2019, most likely from all the media attention, although this years attendees included Mark Hamill, famous for playing Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films. He wouldn’t be the last Hollywood celebrity to suck up to Bezos in the coming months.

At this MARS conference, off-world-colonization was a major topic of discussion, given its little Jeff’s main obsession. His space company, Blue Origin, has successfully launched eleven of its reusable New Shepard rockets, paving the way for its first human crews. Over the years, Bezos has pumped billions of dollars into this space-colonization effort while ruthlessly exploiting his workers down here on Earth. As he makes plans to charge millionaires $300,000 for a few minutes in his spacecraft, his warehouse workers can barely afford to pay their rent. If you think this sounds horrible, keep reading.

Faced with mounting pressure from all sides, Bezos reluctantly agreed to pay his US fulfillment center workers $15 an hour in October 2018, although this seemed to piss off the tyrannical sociopath. Over the next months, he secretly accelerated his plans to fully automate the Amazon fulfillment centers by bringing more robots into the facilities. In a despicable yet typical move, Bezos instructed his underling to contact the media on April 30th, 2019 and announce that fully robotisized fulfillment centers were a decade away.

Able to breath easy knowing the public was placated, Jeff Bezos then went on to attend his very own invite-only event in Washington DC on May 9th, 2019, where he unveiled Blue Origin’s first lunar lander, signaling his intentions to use the moon as a stepping stone to colonize outer-space. As he described his colonial vision, Bezos said “you’re going to have whole industries. There are going to be thousands of future companies doing this work. A whole system of entrepreneurial activity, unleashed. Creative people coming up with new ideas about how to use space. Earth ends up zoned residential and light industry. It’ll be a beautiful place to live, it’ll be a beautiful place to visit, it’ll be a beautiful place to go to college, and do some light industry.” While admitting that the limitless growth and toxic pollution of capitalism are incompatible with a healthy planet, Bezos concluded that humans simply needed to extend that same limitless growth into space. As he asked the audience, “do we want stasis and rationing or do we want dynamism and growth? This is an easy choice. We know what we want.” While we obviously find this logic sickening, we clearly weren’t alone.

Mock-up of Amazon space-station, Blue Origin, 2019

Shortly after this disgusting conference in Washington DC, two anonymous Amazon corporate employees contacted Reuters and revealed Amazon’s secret plans to robotisize its fulfillment centers. According to these anonymous sources, Amazon has been installing boxing-machines that package commodities five time faster than a human. While the initial job losses in the US would be less than 2,000, the sources claimed that Amazon plans to vastly increase the number of robots. It’s unclear why these corporate employees leaked this information, but the announcement came less than two weeks after Amazon claimed full-automation was at least a decade away. In a panic, Amazon made a promise that same day to give $10,000 dollars to any of its warehouse employees who wanted to quit, but only if they pledged to start their own delivery company. With the leaked information now revealing that thousands would soon lose their jobs, Amazon had no choice but to dangle the promise of another job, this time delivering Amazon packages rather than sorting and boxing them. Instead of depending on the US Postal Service, UPS, or FedEX, the company now wants thousands of small contractors to hustle back and forth from the Amazon fulfillment centers.

As was stated in one of our previous critiques of Amazon, efforts to unionize these fulfillment centers are most likely doomed. By the time any organization forms a substantial block among the workforce, these facilities will no longer require humans. Unions in Europe have made the most advances in this regard and have staged numerous work-stoppages, although they’ve still been unable to achieve even moderate gains for their members. This leaves the delivery drivers as the final human workforce capable of sabotaging Amazon’s fulfillment network, but only if they’re organized under an anarchist union with the objective of destroying the company, not merely subsisting off its wages.

We don’t want to discount this possibility, but we also don’t want to impart any false hope. It would take a concerted effort to create an anarcho-communist union big enough to destroy Amazon and require months if not years to build the necessary membership. Amazon is a techno-fascist entity that needs to be taken down immediately, just as its overlord is a demented capitalist psycho-path who needs to be stopped, and its highly likely that unionism is not the way to accomplish these objectives. Amazon poses an existential threat to all free people on the Earth and plans to extend its ruler’s vision into space. To stop these techno-fascist schemes before they come to fruition, we need to act directly. Thanks to Amazon’s relentless expansion, its facilities are now everywhere, and as some anarchists stated decades ago, the secret is to really begin.

Burning The Stage

The revolutionary gesture no longer consists in a simple violent appropriation of this world; it divides into two. On the one hand, there are worlds to be made, forms of life made to grow apart from what reigns, including by salvaging what can be salvaged from the present state of things, and on the other, there is the imperative to attack, to simply destroy the world of capital.

-The Invisible Committee, Now, 2017

Without going into too much detail, we can confidently state that robotisization will create a level of unemployment unseen since the planetary recession of the 1920s-30s, only much bigger. We don’t know exactly what it will look like, but everyone seems to agree its effects will be massive and profound. Amazon is one of the main promoters of this shift, and its market dominance is now being challenged by governments in Europe and the US. While the European Council President Donald Tusk recently called Amazon and the tech giants “an uncontrolled, spontaneous empire,” his counterparts in the US are now moving to use an anti-trust investigation to break up the tech-giantsbefore popular anger grows to vast for them to control. Incidentally, the last time the US federal government broke apart big corporations was when the international anarchist movement was at its greatest strength.

Alexander Berkman speaking against Rockefeller, NYC, 1914

When the US split apart Standard Oil in 1911, it was proceeded by an anti-trust investigation between 1904 and 1906, followed by a five year lawsuit. Popular anger against Standard Oil was at its peak, just as its CEO, JD Rockefeller, was widely despised across the US. This robber baron was forced to live in a gated compound, traveled only under heavy guard, and even his own family members began to kill themselves from the stress. Among the people leading the charge against the Rockefeller empire were the anarchists, a fact which spurred the federal government to intervene. If a similar anti-trust probe leads to a lawsuit against Amazon, it should be taken as a sign that we’ve entered another moment of strength. States only intervene in their free-market when its capitalists begin to destabilize the entire system through their recklessness. Rather than let a popular revolt grow beyond their control, the state will always usurp the rebels by claiming to be sole arbiter of justice. In the case of Standard Oil, all that happened in 1911 was that the company was broken into smaller pieces, most notably Chevron and Exxon. Petroleum didn’t stop belching from exhaust pipes, oil wells were still sunk across the land, and JD Rockefeller felt no hesitation in allowing the killing of his workers in the Ludlow Massacre of 1914. All the anti-trust lawsuit against Standard Oil accomplished was convincing the population that Rockefeller had been punished enough and helped diffuse popular anger. It did nothing to stop the expansion of Rockefeller’s empire, as should be evident from our pollution filled world today. We should expect nothing less from an anti-trust lawsuit against Amazon.

Despite all the popular anger and state pressure, Jeff Bezos doesn’t seem too worried. He just held another conference for himself at the Aria casino in Las Vegas called re:MARS and was able to show off the latest advances in robotic technology. An assortment of techno-fascists gathered to hear a variety of speakers, including Robert Downey Jr., star of the hit movie-series Iron Man. After playing a tech-obsessed CEO for Hollywood, this brain-damaged actor now claims he will start a company that will use robots to heal the damaged environment. As he told the star-struck audience, “between robotics and nanotechnology, we could probably clean up the planet significantly, if not entirely, within a decade.” At the time of this writing, Jeff Bezos is about to give a major speech to the attendees at re:MARS, but we won’t wait for this arch-swine to deliver more repulsive remarks. Now it’s time for resistance.

Bezos being rushed by animal rights protestor at MARS, June 6, 2019

Surprisingly or not, the most recent and effective actions against Amazon have emerged outside the US during the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement in France. Since the massive revolt kicked off in November 2018, multiple Amazon fulfillment centers have been blockadedby the yellow vest wearing rebels, with some warehouse workers even being fired for supporting the movement. Although some of these blockaders are part of the CGT trade-union, most of them are simply members of a diverse and widespread movement aimed against neo-liberal capitalism, the economic system which lets Amazon exploit workers across the globe. These blockades of Amazon facilities often take the company by surprise and happen mostly at night or early in the morning, with the most recent having occurred on May 30, 2019. There are twenty Amazon facilities in France with more than 7,000 employees, making it a much smaller workforce than the US. In other words, it’s much easier to paralyze, disrupt, or destroy. Since the movement began, the construction of a fulfillment center near Lyon has been stalled, while another near the ZAD of Notres-Dame-des-Landes has also been put on hold. While the battle is not over, if construction of these facilities proceeds, it will certainly ignite a serious conflict.

Gilets Jaunes blockade of Amazon, Montélimar, France, 2018

After seven months of Gilets Jaunes blockades, Amazon became the most hated foreign company in France, with even the besieged government being forced to respond. While consistently blacking out the existence of the Gilets Jaunes movement, the French state made much fanfare about a plan to tax Amazon and the other tech-giants. As was described above, this is simply a tactic to diffuse popular anger and prevent and all-out rebellion from destroying the company. Despite the hesitation of other EU states, France has now implemented its GAFA tax, forcing the tech giants to pay 3% (wow!) of what they make in the country. While this tax was passed in March 2019, it failed to stop popular anger against Amazon. Despite a government media-blackout being conducted against the Gilets Jaunes, the movement is still taking to the streets every Saturday, often with fiery results. It’s only a matter of time before we see an Amazon fulfillment center burning.

Gilets Jaunes blockade of Amazon, Bouc-Bel-Air, France, 2018

While we wish there was more resistance to Amazon in the US, we’re confident the rebellion will soon enter its second phase. The victory in Queens was the first time anyone was able to stop Amazon in its tracks, and the lessons learned along the way are still being digested. We wish everyone good luck in their future efforts and hope we’ve highlighted just how dangerous Amazon is. As was stated above, the secret is to really begin.

Global May Day 2019! #1world1struggle Trascontinental Solidarity

Source - Symbols | Global May Day 2019

The Global May Day aims to connect emancipatory May Day activities around the world. It was initiated by individuals organized with the Free Workers’ Union (FAU Hamburg), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW Gainesville and IWW Hamburg).
Furthermore Inter-Factory Workers’ Federation (FBLP, Jakarta), Bangladesh Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation(BASF), the Garment Workers’ Trade Union Centre (GWTUC, Bangladesh) and the Forum for IT Employees(FITE, India) were involved from the beginning. Check this link for the complete list of supporters until now.

The common global framework consists of these three elements:

• Call to Action (defining the common basis)
• Suggested symbols (visually connecting activities related to the call)
• Hashtag #1world1struggle (facilitating online communication)

Each syndicate/group/union organizes its activities with their own focus autonomously. This common framework will help to visually connect those activities and support communication on the global level. Feel free to subscribe and/or contact the Global May Day 2019 mailing list [globalmayday@lists.riseup.net], if you support the call and/or want to connect with others to establish a solidarity partnership.

globalmayday - Transcontinental May Day 2019
#1world1struggle 

Amazon slammed for sacking 100 workers after strike action

Source- Spain Amazon slammed for sacking 100 workers after strike action | Morning Star

SPANISH trade unionists have condemned the sacking of more than 100 Amazon workers following strike action last month.

The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) accused the global logistics company of victimising trade unionists who walked out in a 48-hour stoppage after the introduction of new terms that reduce wages and benefits.

Amazon’s temporary workforce took strike action at the San Fernando de Henares site on March 21 and 22 and are due to walk out again tomorrow.

However the company decided not to renew the contracts of more than 100 temporary staff before the action, which the CGT said was “politically motivated.”

CGT representative on Amazon’s workers committee Marc Blanes said the sackings were unprecedented and he believed that the contracts were not renewed as a reprisal for the employees’ support for the strike.

Amazon dismissed claims their decision was linked to the strike action and said it was due to low demand. However, staff at the site said that layoffs were unusual at this time of year.

Strike action was supported by 98 per cent of the staff at the Amazon site, which has around 2,000 workers, 900 of whom are on precarious contracts.

Some of the temporary workers have been working at the site for 16 months and yet are employed on short-term contracts lasting a week or 15 days.

Under the new terms, pay would be frozen and additional hours payments would be slashed while sick pay would be cut in half.

Unions have called for a day of protest in Madrid today, with action being considered for the company’s biggest sales days including Prime Day and Black Friday.

Meetings are being held with Italian unions to plan joint actions.

Beyond the IWA: an interviewed with the CNT’s International Secretary: the New International Relaunch (1 of 2)

Tarcoteca translation from: Noticias Amor y Rabia - Más allá de la AIT (1ª parte) 25.12.2016

Discreetly, could be almost said in silence, an event that will have serious consequences for the future of the International Libertarian Movement is taking place: the reorganization of anarcho-syndicalism at the international level, at the initiative of the CNT.

Following its December 2015 XI Congress agreements [1], the CNT organized, together with the German FAU and the Italian USI, an International Conference of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist organizations on 26-27 th November 2016, Bilbao. To know the objectives of this conference we [Noticias Amor y Rabia] have interviewed members of the CNT International Secretary Work Team in a conversation that tries to go to the bottom of the question, without dogmatism or myths.
[CNT- Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, is/was the spanish section of IWA- International Workers Association, call AIT- Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores in spanish]

THE BILBAO CONFERENCE AND A DISASTROUS COMMUNICATIVE POLICY

Noticias Amor y Rabia: For those of us who have been in the organization for decades, the CNT's decision to relaunch the AIT/IWA, and even more, the way to do it is a surprise: it is assumed that it is impossible to change it through a consensual agreement, and instead of withdrawl from IWA tries and create a new organization [that would be the organic way], CNT calls to "Refoundation the IWA" out of the organic channels.

The CNT change in its international strategy is the result of an agreement taken at the XI Congress, but for almost a whole year nothing has been heard, the information has been glaring by its absence.

This silence contrasts sharply with the informative activity of the IWA Secretary, which uses internet to accuse CNT, FAU and USI (90% of the AIT membership) of scisionist. At the same time those were not informed about the next IWA Congress in December 2016... Why this policy of communication, bordering on secrecy and delights of any good conspirator? Why do things get carried out in this way, giving arguments to the IWA Secretaryto act against organizations that form the vast majority of the militancy of the IWA?

CNT International Secretary: This may be the result of being the target of the unique, and therefore easily frenetic activity of the IWA Secretary and some of its sections. On the contrary, from CNT we have resisted to enter on dynamics of wasting time awnsering to "trolls" in the Internet forums and we preferred to focus on carrying out our project. In fact, the development of the agreements reached at the CNT XI Congress regarding to ​​IWA and internationalism has been an arduous task of contact with unions in other countries, attendance at Congresses of brother unions, such as FAU and USI among others, as well as an intense collaboration with these last two organizations in this matter.

We have come to assume that it was not worth to spend time from the many other constructive activities of the CNT to get trap answering accusations that the most of the time have no other basis than generate noise enough to make lose the sight of what is happening, and the logic is bring to a second plane. 

This is not happening just now, a lot of things that have been done in recent years and have become visible have been defamed and surrounded with lies, responding to certain attitude of some of the sections of the IWA and its secretary. In fact, much of the IWA's problems stem from this vigilant and censoring attitude, follow by some sections with a lack of real activity, with an exclusively digital existence, centered on the defamation of the positive developments of other syndical active sections.

<<FULFILLING THE AGREEMENTS OF THE XI CNT CONGRESS: The
International Anarcho-syndicalist of Barakaldo Conference 26-27 November 2016.

Arrived at this point and seeing the negative effect that have had on social networks the lies that have been repeated a thousand times with the intention of turning them into truth, it is possible that our discretion has been one of the several mistakes we have made in this matter. Comrades in several countries have told us so. We are now aware of this, mayby we do not give it enough importance. However, we insist, ours is a commitment in the real world, union struggles at the workplace and not discussion forums or social networks. 

Finally, this is not the moment to enter to discuss the impact of Internet on the recent development of the libertarian and anarcho-syndical movement, but is enought to say that, often, there is a supposed purism that only subsists in the cristal mirror that is the digital world, without existence or relevance in the real world.

At times it has been tried to compare the situation with the cism that gave rise to CGT in spain, but this is something that we deny. In that case there were elements of dissension with the ideas that are not present here. That is, CGT was betting on a model that renounced anarcho-syndicalism. Whereas now it is a situation of paralysis that prevents the practical development at the international level of a truly anarcho-syndicalist model of implantation and growth. The problem is not the one of ideological differences, but of attitude and mood.

What is really regrettable is that this situation has escalated, due precisely to the vigilant and censorship attitude of which we spoke before and to the interference of the secretary in the inner affairs of the sections, reaching a situation of rupture we have.

THE IWA NAME 

Noticias Amor y Rabia: The agreement reached at the XI CNT Congress talks about the "re-founding of an international anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism" and a "New IWA", as well as preparing "a serie of conferences and contacts with those IWA sections interested in a process of International refounding". However, the call for the Bilbao Conference ends with ¡Viva La AIT! [Long life IWA!], despite the clear intention to leave this organization and create a new one. Why this fetishism with the acronym, especially when the agreement of the XI Congress qualifies the IWA as "inoperative"? Would not be better to start from zero, with a new name, instead of dragging out an expensive process of confrontation? Does the loss of the surname have legal consequences to CNT, or just sentimental?

CNT International Secretary : It may be so, but it is something we have not decided yet and will have to be clarified in a Congress to be call this coming year. The boast does not represent the will of the militants too well.

There are people who think that acronyms are just a dispensable fetish and others have it as an historical internationalism symbol that they do not want to give up just because a handful of people in some European countries have decided to take unfair advantage of the loopholes in the statutes to impose its destructive will. And we say destructive because it seems that for them to build our alternative and fight capitalism, churches and States is much more ungrateful.

Of course, keeping the acronym IWA or taking another will not have much to do with any legal consequence for the CNT. Our acronyms and identity are at safe, regardless if linked to the IWA or not. But as stated in the question, the Congress agreement is not definitive in this sense and this is therefore an open question that will decide the CNT affiliation in a Plenary and that will take shape in the Refoundation Congress, because we must count also with the opinion of the other organizations involved in the process.

THE SCISIONISTS SECTION OF THE IWA

Noticias Amor y Rabia: The decision of the CNT to rethink its international strategy and the Bilbao Conference have resulted in the immediate convocation of a "National Conference of Syndicates for the Re-Structuring of the CNT-AIT (25, 26 Of June)" [es] [en] and even another "CNT-AIT Congress" [es] in Benissa the past 5 and 6 of November. Nowadays, after some defederations (voluntary or expulsion) there are anarcho-syndicalist groups all over the peninsula, critics with the current direction of the CNT, especially in Galicia, Murcia and Levante. That is why the recent Benissa "Congress" seems more like an attempt to unify the several unions that or have been expelled or voluntarily left the CNT, and are trying to create a new organization that could be recognized as the IWA Spanish section.

In this way, fighting for the restructuring of international anarcho-syndicalism has the direct consequence of a new struggle for acronyms. In addition, the decision to refound the IWA was taken by a slight majority, and there are unions within CNT that do not agree with it, such as Granada, Puerto Real (these are not in CNT), Oviedo or Tarragona (these about to be defederated because they have not paid the quotes for some months), to name a few. Puerto Real for example, on 2016 November 10 call for a monographic general Assembly of Affiliates entitled "In Defense of the AIT." How do you expect to react to an hypothetical new conflict for acronyms? There is any danger of a new internal rupture in the CNT because of the IWA issue?

CNT International Secretary: We should start by putting all these statements in context in order to understand the answer to the final questions.

None of the unions cited (of those who are still in the CNT) went to the Congress of Zaragoza [where the refoundation was choosen] and did not send 'positions', so their disagreement is even less significant than those syndicates that did attend and voted against the agreement, and this didn't meant that they left the organization. 

In addition, we have to add that both the votes the one of the majority as well as the vote of particulars from the international commission that took place at the XI Congress differed only in one question: when to launch the whole process of "refounding the IWA."

<<THE "CONGRESS" TO CREATE A NEW "CNT-AIT": The meeting of a handful of defederated syndicates celebrated in Benissa (4, 5 and 6 of November of 2016) was a smokescreen, since neither took decisions, nor created a new organization with its own statutes.

It is also curious that a couple of years ago a document  with precisely that same name  ("In Defense of the AIT") was put on circulation with the intention of looking for supporters, and its only incidende was to make a fool. 

Among the arguments to ensure that the CNT was self-destructing was the one that said that Noam Chomsky (among others) was one of the intellectual leaders responsible for our "reformist" drift. 

Anecdotes aside, we are talking about a very few bunch of people in a few places, yes, talking bombastically. But nothing else. Neither syndical  nor social reality, but rather virtual, because the computer screen is what is best given to them. 

Our reaction to anyone who tries to usurp the acronyms we carry with pride is not going to be a threat but a forceful response, as we did in the day with the CGT.

These groups have long tried to play the trick of a false ideological purism, in the absence of their own trade union achievements, to criticize the developments of the anarcho-syndicalist model that has raised CNT in recent years. It is not surprising that their membership and number decrease over time. In front of their null reality, they have start play the card of the IWA recognition to ensure their subsistence, since their ability to act is non-existent, and they know that time plays against them. In fact, it is necessary to interpret the meeting of Benissa in the light of this bet. It is not surprising that they had to hold their supposed congress in two parts.

<<ARTIFICIAL MAJORITIES - The 26th IWA Congress picture (Warsaw, December 2-4, 2016): 6 newly created organizations with a total of approximately 325 affiliates, some of them microscopics, expel 4 organizations that helped found the IWA, with 7,100 affiliates.

In the absence of concrete preparations and proposals, and facing the inminence of the IWA Congress at Warsaw, a grotesque meeting was held with no other purpose than to build an organization skeleton to present to the IWA, even if it has a completely lacking of content beyond some high-sounding statements about the supposed reformist drift of CNT, such as we have heard since many years ago, without substantiated anything concrete. After the expulsion of CNT from the IWA at the Warsaw Congress, this is the new Spanish section of the IWA: an organization that has not even been established, without statutes, without organic regulations, etc... There is no doubt that it is a sad end for the IWA.

However, this dinamyc, more important tham for CNT, as it lacks of fundamentes, is relevant to understand how the IWA has arrived to the current situation.

For some time now, the attitude of the current secretary and some sections of the IWA (especially KRAS, Russia) has been to prompt and encourage this brake down. Not in vain KRAS has done several announcements in which they welcome and celebrate this development of facts. Meanwhile the secretary of the IWA has maintained a direct contact with the CNT-Levante defederates, from which comes the initiative of Benissa Congress. Even circulating Levante Documents to the rest of the sections of the IWA through the mailing list. All this as the same time that CNT-spain remained as the official IWA spanish section.

This injerence in the internal affairs of a section constitutes a flagrant violation of the most basic associative pact, in view of which, any call to respect the common agreements lacks of foundation and verisimilitude, especially when the decision-making situation in the IWA is as has already been discussed.

In view of all this, it should be not surprise that is reached a situation of total rupture inside the IWA.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE IWA

Noticias Amor y Rabia: Whatever happens in the future, the truth is that the CNT, the FAU and the USI have passed the Rubicon, and the rupture within the IWA is a fact.

A probable future scenario is that in wich the British Solidarity Federation 'Solfed' will become the most important section of the IWA, while the weight in decision-making would move to Eastern Europe countries, where are set the large number of sections with voting rights in congresses, but with a lacking of the minimal social influence.

An example of the situation that would have to face the IWA in future is the financing of the secretary activities, which nowaday spends 1,000 € per year only in photocopies; The ZSP, the Polish section currently in charge of the secretary, only pays € 100 a year despite being the largest section of the AIT in Eastern Europe. Only with the CNT disissal means for the IWA the loss of an annual income of € 30,000, so the march of 90% of the current militancy will turn the IWA into a purely testimonial and completely inoperative organization, lacking of a source of funding for its propaganda and international activities.

This situation will undoubtedly be the source of growing tensions between an marginalized in decision making SF, but still responsible for carrying on with the burden of financing the remains of IWA and the rest of sections. It is even possible to imagine that SF and some other section would rethinking its international strategy, so maintaining a communication channel would be crucial for the future.

Unfortunately, from the experience of the CNT/CGT scission it is easy to guess that the cut in relations between the now facing sectors in the IWA could finish in a total break up. Has been discussed about the relationship of the New International that CNT, FAU and USI intend to launch with the current IWA? Will it seek to maintain contact with the IWA secretary and its sections?

CNT International Secretary: It is not that the weight of decisions will move east, but that is the reality of the recent years that has led us to the situation we are now in. Of course, the decision is now on the SF and only they know if they are willing to put up with what we have suffer. But with the situation at what we have arrived, we believe that with the attitude of the Polish Secretary, or whoever that takes its place along the same lines, will veto any possible relationship of any section of its international (if it survives) with ours.

We in principle have no problem working together with other syndicates from other countries to win the conflicts that arise in the field of companies or state repression, since we do not lose sight on the fact that our enemy are not the workers even those who we hold the greatest discrepancies, but capitalists and their lackey bureaucrats.

<<SCHIZOPHRENIA: One of the attendees to the Warsaw AIT Congress claims to have attacked the Barakaldo CNT offices for having complied with an agreement of the XI CNT Congress together with others pro-IWA "delegates" [es], and then he says that it is necessary to respect the organic regulation

In any case, the real risk that threatens the IWA in the near future has more to do with its internal drift than with financing, since thanks to the quotes paid by the expelled sections for years, the International has a financial statement more than healthy. In the absence of activity in the real world, the illusion of purism can only be kept living in a permanent witch hunt. That is how all kind of organizations that keeps this attitude end up devouring themselves.

In this sense, returning to the question, the obvious target of the supposed 'purists' will be the SF, since, having refused to establish itself as a union, all its militants hold a double affiliation to the official majoritarian unions, becoming representatives of these in their working centres, (which, on the other hand, speaks clerly about the purported purists motivations, who preferred to ignore this fact and focus on a conflict with CNT, based on fictitious accusations). We may venture that the witch-hunt will not be long in focusing on aspects such this, which can make the remain of SF in the IWA really uncomfortable indeed.

RISK OF FAILURE

Noticias Amor y Rabia: The CNT decision of propose reorganize the international anarcho-syndicalism is the answer to a serie of unending conflicts within the IWA. The agreement of the XI Congress states that the refoundation of the IWA is carried out because it is "inoperative" and because of its a "major internal crisis, which erupted with the expulsion of its German section, the FAU". This is an irony of history, since the expulsion of FAU was due in the most part at the CNT initiative, and especially this of García Rúa, former general secretary of CNT-IWA and the IWA, as we have exposed in a extense article In the previous number of Prisma magazine (first part HERE, second part HERE).

However, instead of calling to prudence, to amend the mistakes of the past, it was decided to take a drastic measure and break down with the relationship. In fact, the CNT agreement seems more as reaction to solve a problem than an action to promote anarcho-syndicalism.

The IWA paralysis was due to the lack of agreement on the various strategies adopted by the CNT, FAU and USI to carry out a strategy of syndical action in the anarcho-syndicalist way adapted to their respective specifities of action. These debates provoked clashes between the various sections and have led to the current destabilization of the IWA, by accepting that sections without real existence had a decisive weight on the organization's progress.

Therefore, the organizational change that is intended to carry out now ends with that decision-making system that deforms the reality as decision are taken by a tiny minority of the organization. But fact this does not change the fundamental problem: the necessary balance between the independence of the Sections and their obligation to respect the principles, tactics and goals that define the federal pact of the new organization. Has this issue been addressed by the CNT, FAU and USI by defining how to reorganize the international anarcho-syndicalism? What consequences would it have if you failed to create a new International?

CNT International Secretary: Of course we must recognize that the step that has been taken has obviously been a reaction to a strangulation of the sections with the vast majority of affiliation, but it also follows a strategy of promoting anarcho-syndicalism at the international level.

We arrived to the point in wich it was evident that the reality of the International made impossible the necessary promotion of the libertarian vision to combat exploitation, so the first step to globally relaunch anarcho-syndicalism was to break with the inertia we have being dragged for years based in many cases on Myths. The exclusive dedication to the control of others and the constant sermon of a handful of sections made impossible to generate the dialigue enviroment to re-speak about the ever more necessary international solidarity and about the challenges that the workers face in a global scenario where we can hear again the old syren chants of fascism.

Although it is something recurrent in this interview but I think it has to be clear enought what are we speaking [the decision-making system] and it is that we are talking about that KRAS (Russia) or Slovakia, quoting each for less than 10 affiliates, have the same representation in the International that the Spanish CNT with about 5000 affiliates. Neither the size of the country, nor relative to the population, nor the repression, nor the anarchist tradition justified (as they have done at times) that for more than 20 years they are in these same conditions of stagnation if not for the attitude of those who grab to the acronyms of the international in those countries; some old knowns. With the shared position of 6 countries with similar realities the majority decision making in the International has been in their hands [for more tham 20 years].

These realities contrast with those of the one that have always been in the spotlight as it has been USI, FAU and CNT with more affiliates than the rest of the world together.

To have another point of view, we are talking about a Sections with 20 times larger membership numbers tham the Sections of 6 countries together, some of them from smaller countries and another one covering two continents, that is subject to decisions, control and the threat of these.

Regarding to the principles, tactics and goals I think that people have a lot more respect for the agreements they accept than it may seem at first glance. The problem with the faults in this sense comes when you are aware that what looks like a serious organization is in reality a bad taste joke and you are the object of laughter. There have been many shortcomings to the agreements, to the point to ensure that we consider that the current secretary and some sections have effectively breached the associative pact long time ago.

As already mentioned and without going further, there are sections that, before the CNT expulsion from the IWA, have publicly recognized other groups as the Spanish section of the IWA.

Possibly we could pull back the chain of irregularities and we would find ourselves with in the times when the Rúa Secretariat warn about a parallel international with the SAC and the CGT, that never happened, and the use of this speech to attack to the FAU and USI.

In that sense, it is true that the current internal situation of the IWA stems largely from the mistakes made by the CNT years ago, but it is also true that given the situation in which our organization was at that times, it is understandable that this happend. Precisely, the CNT's change of approach, from a defensive and enclosed on itself strategy, without a project beyond the reports of the prevailing syndical model, to the current one, in which we face a stage of growth and openness, with an own, [unique] and effective syndical model, explains in the most part why CNT needs another kind of international coordination, which can not be given in the current IWA.

By all this I mean that when people is taken into account, is respected, work conditions are created and efforts are focused on the real enemy looking outward rather than inwardly, conflicts with internal normative tend to lesser or even disappear.

<<FULFILLING THE AGREEMENTS OF THE XI CNT CONGRESS: The CNT's highest decision-making body, a Congress, decided [es,en] to organize an International Conference to promote the Relaunch of the IWA.

The consequences of failing can not be very serious because we start from Zero, that is, The International does not exist 'de facto'.

If we compare the societies in which we live, the influence or even the existence of the IWA disappears when we stop reading certain Internet forums. In order for us to be considered as a useful reality in defens of the interests of internationally exploited workers, we must try to get out of the trap we are in, and that is exactly what we are doing now without any sense of fear to fail. The current situation is the proper failure.

However, it is true that is not easy to outline an international organization that avoids all the mistakes of the past, while achieving a frictionless operativity. It will require a good dose of work and will. Ultimately it will much depend on the participating organizations to know how to endow it with practical content, common projects, to ensure effective solidarity.

In this way, the discussion will move from the formal and organizational aspects to the practical issues, where unfounded confrontations are less likely to arise, despite the differences that may occur, of course. But because of that, because we want to do it well, CNT, USI and FAU have decided to handle wide times and not enter in meaningless competitions with anyone.

There is, no doubt, the risk of repeating past mistakes, but also the firm will to avoid them.

FOLLOW ... (SECOND PART)