On
April 3, the Canadian government awarded Amazon the contract to distribute
personal protective equipment and supplies during the COVID-19 disaster.A
couple of days earlier Amazon had fired a New York worker, Chris Smalls, for
helping to organize a strike over the lack of safety provision in Amazon’s
Staten Island warehouse.
On April 14, Amazon fired two Seattle workers for publicly criticizing safety and working conditions at its warehouses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Clearly Amazon is a repeat offender when it comes to attacking workers.
Yet, amazingly the Canadian government prefers to work with an anti-worker company rather than working with the unionized Canada Post workers. So much for Trudeau’s friendly talk in 2015 about seeing public services as partners and valuing Canada Post.
Instead of shunning Canada Post, the government should have worked closely with it and its union, Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), to provide valuable support to Canadians during COVID-19.
CUPW proposed a plan to make full use of the facilities of Canada Post, which includes the largest public vehicle fleet and retail network in the country. Canada Post has a network that serves every part of this vast land and, until Harper started cutting, postal workers had direct contact with almost every Canadian household. The plan’s (Delivering Community Power) proposals included:
- Postal banking, vital to many small and Indigenous communities without a bank and for low income people locked out of the main profit-hungry banks
- Door-to-door mail carriers checking in on seniors and people with mobility issues
- A consolidated last-mile delivery service
The plan made the point that “Mail carriers, already the eyes and ears of their neighbourhoods, could check in on seniors, and connect residents to other public health and social services.” What a great idea that would have been for these COVID-19 times.
These proposals could have been built upon to check on people of concern, collect forms such as for EI or CERB, and deliver food, medicine, etc., to people who are housebound for whatever reason. Postal workers could have provided a vital frontline service. It is not too late to shift direction and turn to public servants: the unionized postal workers.
However, the Liberals have proven, again, to prefer to be friends with the super-rich rather than with regular workers. Socialist Alternative has a different attitude to Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos. We have supported Amazon workers fighting for safety and protection during COVID-19. Last year in Seattle’s council election Jeff Bezos tried to buy the result, spending $1.5 million. In particular, he wanted to defeat Socialist Alternative’s councillor Kshama Sawant. However, he failed and she was re-elected.
Canada’ s Liberals give money to Amazon and Bezos, already the richest man in the world. Socialist Alternative fights against Bezos and Amazon’s boss’s anti-worker policies. There is a clear difference. If you want to fight against Amazon join Socialist Alternative.
