Labor Must Prioritize Organizing Amazon to Survive
Source: Benjamin Y. Fong. "The Labor Movement Must Go All In on Organizing Amazon." March 8, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
The author argues that American unions are dying and their only hope is to pool massive resources to organize Amazon workers. Just like unions in the 1930s had to organize giant companies like General Motors to survive, today's unions must organize Amazon or become irrelevant.
Conclusion
The American labor movement must commit massive resources to organizing Amazon as its top priority, or face institutional irrelevance and death
Premises
- Amazon is becoming the dominant force across multiple industries (retail, logistics, cloud computing) and will soon be the first company with $1 trillion annual revenue
- Amazon's growth directly threatens major union contracts, particularly the 330,000-worker UPS Teamsters contract, as Amazon has surpassed UPS in package volume
- Historical precedent shows labor revitalization requires targeting the commanding heights of the economy, as the CIO did with General Motors in 1937
- Amazon's integrated distribution network requires networked organizing focused on package flow control, not traditional site-specific tactics
- Current organizing efforts at Amazon are too small and under-resourced relative to the company's scale and growth rate
- Unions have substantial financial resources ($500 million spent on elections every two years) that could be redirected to organizing
- Amazon presents unique vulnerabilities through its distribution chokepoints that traditional organizing has failed to exploit
Assumptions
- Union density decline will continue without major victories at large employers
- Amazon will continue its aggressive anti-union tactics including facility shutdowns
- Traditional site-by-site organizing methods are inadequate for modern logistics companies
- Political spending by unions has diminishing returns compared to organizing investment
- A successful Amazon campaign would have spillover effects revitalizing the broader labor movement