Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Upcoming Panel: Robin D. G. Kelly, A Bessemer Amazon Worker and Others Speak About Black Struggle and Unions

Sign up to receive the Zoom link for the event.  Over the past month, all eyes have been on Bessemer, Alabama as 5,800 workers at an Amazon distribution facility cast votes on whether or not to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Inspired by last year’s Black Lives Matter movement, a […]

Left Voice

April 12, 2021
Facebook Twitter Share
(Bob Miller/The New York Times)

Sign up to receive the Zoom link for the event. 

Over the past month, all eyes have been on Bessemer, Alabama as 5,800 workers at an Amazon distribution facility cast votes on whether or not to unionize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Inspired by last year’s Black Lives Matter movement, a predominantly Black workforce in a predominantly Black town in the South took on one of the biggest companies in the world in a unionization drive that could give new life to the labor movement in the United States.

After an epic anti-union campaign by Amazon, the union lost the vote count by a huge margin, dealing the labor movement a major defeat. But the RWDSU is contesting the results, and a wave of other attempts to unionize Amazon may be on the horizon.

Join Bessemer Amazon worker and Black Lives Matter activist Frances Wallace to discuss conclusions from the struggle to unionize. Robin D. G. Kelly, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists and the Great Depression, will speak about the context of southern labor, Black struggle, and leftists. The panel will also include Ioan Georgianna, a former hotel worker who was involved in unionizing the Hilton and Sheraton hotels. Julia Wallace will also speak about the struggle to get cops out of our unions and the broader connection between Black struggle and the labor movement. 

Sign up to receive the Zoom link for the event, or RSVP on Facebook to view the livestream. 

Panelists include:

Frances Wallace (Amazon worker and activist)

Robin DG Kelley (Author of Hammer and Hoe)

Julia Wallace (SEIU Drop the Cops)

Ioan Georgianna (Factory worker)

The event will be moderated by Tatiana Cozzarelli (Left Voice editor).

Saturday, April 17, 2021

5 pm ET | 4 pm CT | 2 pm PT

Event will be live on Zoom and Facebook live.

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

United States

A Pause in Genocide Is Not Enough: Jewish Voice for Peace Shuts Down the Manhattan Bridge

Amid a pause in Israel’s offensive on Gaza, Jewish Voice for Peace is showing that the movement for Palestine will continue. Civil disobedience must lead to broad protests which bring all sectors of the movement together.

Samuel Karlin

November 26, 2023
Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdel Hamid, and Tahseen Ahmed wearing Keffiyes. They were shot in Burlington, Vermont, USA.

The Three Palestinians Shot in Burlington Are Victims of Rising Islamophobia

Three Palestinian men were shot in Burlington Vermont while walking down the street. The campaign against Palestine has dehumanized all Palestinians and left them more vulnerable to these types of attacks.

Enid Brain

November 26, 2023
A rally with people holding signs and a banner reading "Full funding"

Student Workers Stand Up for CUNY and Palestine

Attacks on CUNY and CUNY activists are an attack on all working people and students. Workers and students united can fight back.  

Olivia Wood

November 25, 2023

Protestors Disrupt Thanksgiving Parade With One Message: End Genocide, Don’t Celebrate It

This Thanksgiving, pro-Palestine protestors and Indigenous people refuse to allow the whitewashing of past and ongoing genocide.

Emma Lee

November 23, 2023

MOST RECENT

Robert Habeck Wrote a Play Praising a Right-Wing Mass Murderer

Germany's Green vice chancellor strikes many as an idealist who has been struggling with the tough realities of government. Yet before he was a national politician, he wrote a play that opens a window into a dark soul.

Nathaniel Flakin

December 1, 2023

The World Kissinger Built Must Die Too

Henry Kissinger died at 100 years old. But his legacy remains in the brutal world system he built and the future generations of imperialist ghouls he inspired. They all must go.

Samuel Karlin

November 30, 2023

Fact Check: Did German Leftists Try to Bomb West Berlin’s Jewish Community Center in 1969?

Answer: No. The bombing was undertaken by West Germany’s domestic secret service, originally founded by Nazis.

Nathaniel Flakin

November 29, 2023
Protesters in NYC for Palestinian liberation.

Uniting Workers for Palestine Is a Fight for the Future of Labor

The struggle for Palestine shows the potential for the rank and file to push unions to break with imperialism and to build a new, combative, and internationalist unionism.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

November 27, 2023