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Sunday, June 05, 2022

"Amazon will build delivery facility in Anoka County" [UPDATED with revised and extended remarks]

The Crabgrass headline [unbracketed part] is from the headline of the Business Journal report:

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2022/06/02/amazon-will-build-anoka-county-delivery-facility.html

 That item opens:

 Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) will build a 140,000-square foot delivery station employing up to 600 people in the Anoka County city of Centerville, the latest move by the e-commerce giant to boost its Twin Cities distribution network.

NorthMetroTV has a report on the plans by Seattle-based Amazon, which were approved by Centerville City Council in late May. (The proposal has been in the works for a while, but without Amazon's name attached; development officials referred to the delivery center only as "Project Banjo.")

The facility could open by fall 2023.

RELATED: As suspected, Woodbury's "Project Belle" is Amazon

The Star Tribune also has a report, noting that the facility will add hundreds of trucks and vans to the site. Amazon has pledged up to $650,000 to make street improvements like roundabouts and left-turn lanes to help with increased traffic.

Delivery stations are much smaller than Amazon's big fulfillment centers, like its facility in Shakopee. They're typically positioned near the end of company's shipping chain, taking pallets of goods from larger distribution centers, sorting them by route and dispatching vans for final delivery. You can read more about how Amazon's total delivery system works here.

Amazon already has two delivery centers in the metro, in Eagan and Maple Grove. It also announced one in St. Cloud last year, and a supply-chain expert told the Business Journal that others are probably planned in markets like Duluth and Rochester. 

Dandy!

The item is silent on whether Amazon will own and run the facility, or use a straw party, and whether it will employ drivers, or play the Bezos independent contractor ploy. Be vigilant. It matters. 

If employees, they can uniolnize. If not, they cannot. Bezos is known for an abiding dislike of unionization at his facilities. He does not want employees to have union protections, and if they are "independent contractors" they cannot gain union protections. If Bezos uses a straw party, then workers have to unionize against it, not Amazon, unless at law in litigation they can pierce the corporate veil to get to the real boss.

It is not as if Bezos is against paying his help, it is just the little ones he wants to squeeze.

This page begs the question entirely.

 

click the image to enlarge and read

 Note the language, "Working with our Delivery Service Partners . . .:

That is a red flag, straw parties are involved. 

 A simple search = amazon labor practices

Then there is this:

https://flex.amazon.com/ That site ends, asking, "Are you Ready?" If so, should you be ready bend forward and grab your socks? Or is it something better than Uber trickery?

BOTTOM LINE: Like Howard Schultz at Starbucks, Jeff Bezos opposes unionization

Go figure.

The Verge.

________________UPDATE________________ 

 LABOR IS AS LABOR DOES WHEN DC CONSULTANT BOUTIQUES GET CAUGHT WORKING BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET

Sirota (https://www.levernews.com/) has an interesting post, quoted next:

Amazon’s Union Buster Has Major Labor Clients

To crush the historic Staten Island union vote, the online retailer employed a major Democratic firm that has long worked for labor.
Amazon’s Union Buster Has Major Labor Clients
(AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

A recent union drive at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island didn’t just deliver the first labor victory anywhere in the online retailer’s U.S. operations when workers voted to unionize there. The bitter fight over the unionization effort has also provided a rare glimpse into how Democrats' consulting class simultaneously advises — and profits off — purportedly pro-union Democratic politicians, corporate union busters, and the labor movement itself.

The prominent Democratic consulting firm Global Strategy Group (GSG) was recently exposed for helping spearhead Amazon’s attempt to crush the Staten Island union drive. It turns out that the firm — which reaps millions of dollars each election cycle conducting polling, research, and public relations for candidates and liberal organizations — has also long done work for some of the country’s largest unions.

GSG originally sought to defend its work for Amazon, claiming in a since-deleted statement that a report from CNBC “incorrectly attributes anti-union work to GSG that was done by others.” On Monday, the firm issued a half-hearted apology, writing: “While there have been factual inaccuracies in recent reports about our work for Amazon, being involved in any way was a mistake. We are deeply sorry, and we have resigned that work.”

When approached by The Lever, two of the unions that previously contracted with GSG — the American Federation of Teachers and a New York chapter of the Service Employees International Union — said that they will no longer employ the firm.

However, five unions and several big-name Democratic candidates that have employed the firm in recent years did not respond to a request for comment as to whether they would sever ties with the company.

The episode highlights a central conflict at the heart of today’s Democratic Party, one with real implications for organized labor: Democrats present themselves as the party of organized labor, while also relying on campaign contributions from major corporations. Similarly, many of the consultants who work for labor unions or to elect Democrats spend as much or more of their time working on behalf of corporate interests that pay far better, so they have little real loyalty to Democrats’ working-class base.

The beat goes on. Mammon recruits to where vigilance is forever necessary.