{"id":637768,"date":"2022-05-04T17:58:23","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T17:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=395584"},"modified":"2022-05-04T17:58:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T17:58:23","slug":"amazon-anti-union-consultant-boasted-about-infiltrating-afl-cio-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/05\/04\/amazon-anti-union-consultant-boasted-about-infiltrating-afl-cio-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Anti-Union Consultant Boasted About Infiltrating AFL-CIO Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"
Katie Lev,<\/u> a lead consultant hired to persuade workers to oppose unionization efforts at Amazon warehouses, raised the alarm last week about growing labor activism, speaking at a small gathering of other union suppression professionals and corporate labor relations attorneys.<\/p>\n
“Wow, have things started changing in union organizing just since I put this presentation together,” said Lev at the annual meeting for CUE, a trade group for labor relations professionals, last week. There are more petitions to form unions, greater media interest in union campaigns, greater online communication among labor activists, and an emboldened union environment, fueled by independent organizing at firms such as Amazon, Lev’s client.<\/p>\n
Lev said many of the details for her talk were informed by her years of experience. In 2021, Lev\u2019s company, Lev Labor LLC, was paid $371,676<\/a> by Amazon to persuade workers against<\/a> joining a union. Disclosures show that she has other anti-union engagements with Mapbox, Albertsons, and a North Carolina hospital<\/a> owned by HCA Healthcare. But her talk also featured inside information gleaned directly from labor unions.<\/p>\n \u201cSo very recently, within the last year, the AFL-CIO put out an organizing webinar on campaign strategy,\u201d said Lev. The site, she said, was password-protected, but she gained access by finding the login credentials easily on the union\u2019s website. (One of the unions organizing Amazon workers, RWDSU, is a member of the AFL-CIO.)<\/p>\n The union webinar, said Lev, strongly encouraged workers to form separate communication channels on online messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp and Signal, to relay information about organizing efforts. And then unions have stepped up efforts to build group identity, with tactics to capture workers early on by wearing union T-shirts and committing to a union with their families, making any dissent from the union difficult.<\/p>\n Lev Labor did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept.<\/p>\n\n In\u00a0early April, 8,000 Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, voted to unionize, a historic first<\/a> for the company. The effort was led by Christian Smalls, a former Amazon worker who formed<\/a> an independent union and campaigned almost every day at the bus stop used by workers to commute.<\/p>\n