Just When You Thought it was Safe to Come Out From Under the Picket Sign

Amazon joins the attacks on working families in America.

I’M STICKIN’ WITH THE UNION. (PHOTO BY RON ADAR ON SHUTTERSTOCK)

First, my confession. I’m an Amazon fanatic. And, it’s all because I live on Lake Ontario in a semi-remote part of the world along the North Coast of America. OK, I’m not in the Adirondack wilderness or a desert in Utah, but where I live, buying anything of importance without going to get cheap Chinese shit at the Dollar Store is next to impossible.

And so I use Amazon Prime. Baby needs a new pair of shoes? Amazon Prime. Need a pack of Valentines? Amazon Prime. Need to watch the latest movie? Amazon Prime.

But I started to get a little squeamish when workers in warehouses around the country began revealing the harsh almost third-world-like conditions in their workplaces. And, as a member of two labor unions … the National Writers Union of UAW Local 1981 and NYSCOBA which represents me as a Park Ranger … Amazon’s strike-breaking tactics have certainly tugged at my loyalty to my fellow workers.

Now though, Amazon’s latest antic has taken me to my breaking point.

They’re assaulting workers’ rights once more by claiming in a lawsuit that the National Labor Relations Board (N.L.R.B.) is unconstitutional.

For the uninformed, the N.L.R.B. is an 88-year-old federal agency that enforces labor rights. It is made up of a prosecutorial arm, which issues complaints against employers who have violated federally protected labor rights.

They’ve joined the likes of Elon Musk at Space X and Trader Joe’s that if you don't like the law, and you’re rich enough, and you’re popular enough, and you’re just plain greedy enough, it doesn't matter what the law says … it doesn’t apply to me.

The long and short of it is that Amazon, Musk, and Trader Joe’s are saying that protecting workers is not part of the American fabric.

In their legal argument among “other defenses,” they allege that …

“ … the structure of the N.L.R.B. violates the separation of powers” by “impeding the executive power provided for in Article II of the United States Constitution.”

This is a fanciful way of saying that the executive branch, aka guys like Donald Trump, should be the ultimate arbiter in all things related to working families.

Don’t like the interpretation of the law? Just wait around long enough and the loonies will take over and change it.

It wasn’t that long ago that the chairwoman of the labor board under President Barack Obama, called the arguments by Amazon and SpaceX “radical,” adding that “the constitutionality of the N.L.R.B. was settled nearly 90 years ago by the Supreme Court.”

That was then, this is now. Welcome to 21st-century fascism.

So, in protest, I’ve decided to quit.

The hardest addiction I’ve ever had to conquer was smoking two packs of unfiltered Camels a day. I got good at it because I quit so many times I was getting good at it.

But ejecting Amazon is going to make that battle look like a walk in the proverbial park! It ain’t going to be easy. To do it means I have to learn that there’s nothing I don’t need that can't wait a few days or weeks to get. 

Yikes!

I’m getting so nervous about breaking the Amazon habit that I think I need to join Cigarettes Anonymous again. My version was a place where when you want a cigarette you call a number and someone comes over and gets drunk with you. You can imagine how well that worked. But I did it.

And, I have to remember, if I can stop going to non-union Starbucks, I can stop ordering from Amazon, too.

Netflix, here I come.