Shuler, Levin: PRO Act Would Have Stopped Amazon's Tactics at Bessemer
In a stark illustration of how current U.S. labor law is tilted against workers, two experts on changing it—AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., a former top union organizer—say the Protect The Right To Organize (Pro) Act would have basically outlawed Amazon’s high-pressure tactics that defeated the union organizing drive at its big warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. And they also added, in a Zoom press conference on May 20, that one defeat won’t stop organized labor’s campaign to both organize the behemoth and to increase union density in the deep-red, union-hostile South. “In the deep South, there’s a racist streak of dividing Black and white workers, and it’s called ‘right to work,’” Shuler declared. So-called RTW laws, a favorite of union haters in the corporate class and the radical right, first arose in the South in the 1940s for just that purpose.