Six Poultry Workers Killed & Dozens Injured in Non-Union Georgia Plant Chemical Leak With Known Health & Safety Violations with Adam Obernauer, Director of Retail Organizing, the Retail Wholesale & Department Store Union
"We cannot allow this to continue to happen. Workers' lives are not disposible." " We stand with the workers at this facility and countless others who need worker-led health and safety committees, to prevent needless injuries, or as we tragically saw today deaths." RWDSU Pres. Stuart Applelbaum
Stuart Applebaum, President of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Workers (RWDSU), which represents over 15,000 poultry workers at facilities across the southern United States said "The health and safety of workers must be top priority at poultry plants that are providing essential food on dinner tables in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Had simple safety protocols been followed today workers lives wouldn't be on the line. Building Bridges speaks with the RWDSU, about the egregious lack of standards at non-union facilities like the one in Gainsville which cost essential workers their lives.
Against this tragic loss of life in a non-union plant Adam Obernauer talks about RWDSU-UFCW organizing drive at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Alabama. The strongest effort to create a union at Amazon in many years is underway in Bessemer, Alabama. Organizers with the RWDSU-UFCW have been working with employees at the Amazon fulfilment center. By December, more than 2,000 workers had signed union cards, leading to an election set to begin in February. The company is engaging in union-busting activities in response, but the workers are not backing down. Many of the organizers and the employees at the fulfillment center are Black, and the organizers have focused on issues of racial equality and empowerment as part of the drive **********************
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
Please notify us if you plan to broadcast this radio program - knash@igc.org