I never thought I would organize a union in my workplace. I grew up in a conservative Mormon household, but thankfully, my family was not the only source of information that I had access to. There were plenty of books, movies, and TV shows that helped me form my own opinions on fighting injustice through teamwork.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had other rules while I was growing up: Don’t date until you’re 16; marriage is between a man and a woman; the list goes on. I kept parts of myself under wraps to survive.
But after I got a job at an Amazon warehouse, I began experimenting with my gender presentation. I joined Glamazon, an affinity group for LGBTQIA+ employees. While Glamazon made the workplace more inclusive for LGBTQIA+ people in some ways, it ultimately didn’t seem geared towards the transformative change I was seeking.
Sometimes that meant we had to take on the responsibility to support each other. One time, a trans coworker had shared with me his frustration that the men’s bathrooms don’t have menstrual products, so some coworkers and I made boxes of menstrual products and put them in the men’s facilities. When we noticed those boxes were removed, I expressed my concerns to a trusted queer manager, and eventually the products were placed in all the bathrooms.
Dealing with queer-specific issues is only one part of the harsh reality of working at an Amazon warehouse. My job is physically demanding, with 10-hour shifts that keep me on my feet all day with minimal break time (two half-hour breaks), and using a pallet jack to move items at a pace that an OSHA official said are “designed for speed, not safety." I’m too young for my joints to give out the way they do. As a result, I switched to reduced hours after a year — despite needing the extra income — because working full-time meant being constantly exhausted and in pain.
I was far from the only Amazon STL8 worker who saw the urgent need for safer work: Many of us workers find the rates unsustainable and inhumane, we are overworked to the point of constant stress and exhaustion, the repetitive movements required of us result in joint and soft tissue injuries, and AmCare, our in-house health clinic, often rushes us back to the floor without sufficient time and care to recover from job-related injuries.
Against this backdrop, I didn’t hesitate to say yes when my coworker Stacey asked if I wanted to join an action to confront management with a petition last year demanding better pay and safer working conditions.
Joining the petition action revealed that the real community I was interested in building at Amazon was with people who were brave enough to fight for higher pay, safer work, and a union. I realized that forming a union is one of the most effective ways for workers — LGBTQIA+ and beyond — to tackle discrimination, poverty, and income inequality. According to a 2015 survey, transgender people are three times more likely than the general population to be unemployed and more than twice as likely to live in poverty. Moreover, transgender people of color experience workplace discrimination at disproportionately higher rates than their white transgender counterparts.
Unionizing can improve the reality of work for LGBTQIA+ people at Amazon warehouses and other workplaces across the country.
It could help me, a queer and non-binary worker with things like: better pay, preventing forms of harassment like misgendering and identity-based discrimination when it comes to job security and promotions, and guaranteeing access to bathrooms that correspond with my gender identity.
Our Organizing Committee has already notched some key milestones in our journey to unionizing. We’ve confronted management to demand things like more reasonable work rates and clean drinking water; we went on strike last Black Friday; our call for congressional action prompted Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders to launch an investigation into Amazon’s “dangerous conditions,” citing STL8 in his announcement letter to company CEO Andy Jassy; and we filed an OSHA complaint and have been leading inspectors through our warehouse to look into worker alleged mistreatment by AmCare, Amazon’s in-house health facility.
As one of the youngest OC members, I’ve enjoyed building relationships with older adults who actually affirm my belief in the need to fight classism and racism. However, not all members are as socially progressive as I am on LGBTQIA+ issues, which has meant focusing on challenges that are widely felt among us to win a better workplace.
At the same time, during record attacks on the rights of trans and queer people in Missouri and across America, we are educating OC members on how the far right and ruling class have wielded manufactured queerphobia to divide workers throughout history.
Through organizing at Amazon I’ve learned that when we come together and fight, we win. I’m committed to leading the way in making sure our organizing committee celebrates diversity and guarantees the respect, safety, and dignity of every worker. Because queer and trans rights are workers’ rights, and as the labor movement saying goes, an injury to one is an injury to all.
Anyone can organize their workplace. Start by talking to your coworkers about the challenges they are facing. Recent worker organizing victories — from the formation of Starbucks Workers United and Trader Joe’s United, to concrete gains made by the UPS Teamsters and United Auto Workers — have proven that young people can and are leading their coworkers to unionize and win better pay and conditions on the job.
In a statement to Teen Vogue, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said, “Not only does STL8 have a consistent track record of safety improvement and an injury rate well below the industry average, but our employees also routinely tell us in anonymous surveys that they believe they have a safe work environment.”
Lynch Vogel also said that employees are not rushed out of AmCare facilities and are given ample time to recover; that all restrooms at the STL8 facility have menstrual sanitary products; and that Amazon disagrees with the OSHA citation issued to STL8 and has appealed it.
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