Dialogues

Organize Amazon!

Saturday, May 15, 1:00-2:30PM

The realities are stark: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos added almost $100 billion to his net worth during the pandemic, while nearly 20,000 employees tested positive for Covid-19.  

Amazon’s profits are made possible by the labour of poor and racialized warehouse workers, but also by the company’s lucrative technology contracts with police and border agencies. 

How can we intervene? This conversation brings advocates for Amazon employees into conversation with cultural workers to discuss organising strategies. Illustration by Michael DeForge. Originally commissioned by Briarpatch Magazine.

PANELISTS

Hiba Ali, digital artist and scholar 
Michael DeForge, comics artist and illustrator, Cartoonists Against Amazon
Arash K., former Amazon delivery worker, UFCW
Gagandeep Kaur, Organizer, Warehouse Workers Centre 

MODERATOR

Ryan Hayes, Mayworks board member

ASL Interpretation is available.

Please visit our Vimeo for recordings of past Dialogues.

Hiba Ali is a digital artist, educator, scholar, DJ, experimental music producer and curator based across Chicago, Austin, and Toronto. Their performances and videos concern surveillance, womyn of colour, and labour. She studies geographies of East African, South Asian and Arab communities across the Indian Ocean region through music, cloth and ritual. They conduct reading groups addressing digital media and workshops with open-source technologies. She is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Queens University in Kingston. They are an Assistant Professor of Art, New Media Artist/ Feminist Discourse, College of Design, Art & Technology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. 

Michael DeForge works as a cartoonist in Toronto, and has published graphic novels with Drawn & Quarterly and Koyama Press. He was an organizer in Cartoonists Against Amazon, a group of authors, illustrators, arts and festival workers calling on literary festivals to stop accepting sponsorships from Amazon and its affiliates.

Arash K. was a delivery driver working for Amazon. He was the key that helped UFCW unionize his Amazon contracted delivery company (DEC Express, later DEC Fleet Services) in 2017 that operated out of Amazon’s distribution site in Scarborough. 

Gagandeep Kaur is a warehouse worker, proud member of Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), labour activist, and grassroots organizer for the Warehouse Workers Centre in Peel since its inception. A strong believer in the power of organizing, supporting and strengthening workers through education and training, Gagandeep strives to create safer workplaces and to help implement proper health and safety conditions for workers.

Ryan Hayes works with the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF). He is currently supporting a global network of food delivery workers, including riders with the Amazon-backed company Deliveroo.