On Sunday, the Amazon Labor Union brought together unionized workers, leftists and other Amazon workers in Staten Island. On Monday, workers at LDJ5 facility began voting on a union at their warehouse. It is directly across the street from JFK8, the facility that made history becoming the first unionized Amazon in the United States. Below is a speech by Mark Saber, an Amazon worker involved in unionizing JDJ5. 

Hey, I am Mark Saber and I am an LDJ5 worker.

I joined the union a couple months ago after working in the warehouse for almost a year. During the past year, I noticed a lot of favoritism and I grew frustrated when the people working hard would suffer when Amazon made decisions that put profit over their employees. When I saw Maddie and Mitch and other fellow co worker distributing the authorization cards, it made me realize that we do need a union to make this job worth keeping.

We deserve better for the work we do.

We carry 50 pound boxes everyday, only receiving 15 mins breaks, 5 minutes of which we have to spend walking to and from the break rooms. The managers’ favorites are allowed to just stand around while the rest of us are hurting our backs scanning and making ourselves dizzy wrapping pallets.

How many times has anyone gone to report some issue to HR or a manager and they actually helped us?

We need a union so that we can fight for ourselves and our coworkers. We need the union to have our voices heard and to make our concerns known so that we can make this job one that is worth keeping.

I am Mark Saber and I am voting YES to ALU!