Amazon unjustly fires Georgia labor organizer
Atlanta, GA – On December 7, Amazon targeted and fired labor organizer Arturo Adame after a year of his consistent worker organizing.
In 2022 Arturo helped lead a successful walkout from the Buford, Georgia Amazon warehouse, officially putting him on Amazon’s radar. In the weeks leading up to his firing, Adame helped organize a petition demanding better pay, working conditions, and respect from Amazon. “As I was getting signatures, they would write me up for very minor phone violations. They were singling me out and holding me to a higher standard than everyone else.”
Adame’s firing occurred alongside a wave of firing union activists across the country, with workers in both New York and Kentucky being targeted for organizing their coworkers. Adame stated, “A couple years ago management didn’t know how to handle the organizing at Amazon and took a more non-confrontational role. But in the years between then and now, with increased organizing at Amazon, they are using tactics from higher management to retaliate against workers trying to organize. Obviously they’re afraid of a union.”
Adame and his coworkers have been thrust into action as a result of Amazon’s repression, launching a “Bring Back Arturo” campaign.
Adame will be filing a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, but will also be relying on the mobilization of workers and shop floor agitation to get reinstated. “We’re going to try to exercise our shop floor power, with whatever leverage we can, to get me reinstated immediately. We made buttons that say, ‘Bring Back Arturo’ and have been passing those out. We have also been encouraging people to talk to management and to question my firing, to make them acknowledge what they did was illegal and put pressure on them.”
Friends and coworkers of Arturo Adame have organized a Go Fund Me to help him pay bills as he spends the rest of the year fighting to be reinstated.