International Socialist Alternative participated in an international meeting last month alongside 91 workers and activists involved in the global movement to unionize Amazon everywhere. The meeting was hosted by AWI (Amazon Workers International), a network of unions and activists involved in organizing Amazon, and it was attended by people from the US, Spain, India, Mexico, Canada, Poland, Germany, Italy, and the UK. Workers from CGT (Confederación General de Trabajo) led a discussion on lessons of their 2025 strike at RMU1 in Murcia, Spain.
Strike at RMU1
The workers at RMU1 went on strike twice, once at the end of November for three days, and when Amazon didn’t budge, they organized a SECOND strike between December 17-19. CGT workers were able to win 14% wage increases beginning January this year, as well as annual increases of 4% in each of the next two years, improved Sunday and night shift pay increases, and more paid time off. More importantly RMU1 was able to break the bargaining deadlock that had lasted more than a decade, showing that through worker-led democratic organizing and a direct class-struggle approach, Amazon can be forced to make concessions, and they can be beaten.
International Coordination
Oscar, a CGT worker-organizer who helped lead the strike made it clear that organizing the strike would not have been possible through a timid underground approach, instead CGT workers boldly talked about the strike in one-on-one shop floor organizing. As a result 75% of RMU1’s workforce participated in the December strike. RMU1 has a diverse workforce with many immigrant workers, including Venezuelan, Moroccan, and Ecuadorian workers. Organizers would eat breakfast together and discuss with immigrant coworkers about the need for a class struggle approach. As a result there was a huge participation of immigrant workers in the strikes, undoubtedly a big factor in their success. Amazon knows that keeping immigrant and native-born workers divided is key to stopping unionization and action in the US and abroad.
The Stand Up Strike
Workers also chose the moment of the strike strategically. On the day of the strike they clocked in as usual, but when they reached peak hours, workers stood up, marched out of the building together, joined the picket lines, and blocked truck entrances so Amazon cargo could not enter or leave the facility. Over 40 trucks were delayed in the process.
The strike at RMU1 was centered around democratic workers’ participation and class struggle, they also took a non-sectarian approach and attempted to gather support from other unions in RMU1. Many European workplaces have multiple unions in the workplace, which Amazon attempted to exploit to keep workers divided during the strikes. Unfortunately, other unions like UGT and CCOO attempted to demobilize the strike, claiming that it would not benefit the workers, or that they had “legal” concerns, and wanted to focus on conflict containment and “Paz Social.” That is to say, the idea that workers and bosses have the same interests, and that deals should be cut that benefit the employer and the workers. This is a dead-end strategy that ignores that anything we gain from our union struggles is taken directly from the profits of the employer, thus only a class-struggle based approach where production is shut down, workers are democratically and en masse brought into the struggle, and fight around bold demands can defeat a giant like Amazon.
Unions Should be Political
The fight to win real fighting unions everywhere is also a deeply political fight. Oscar noted that the final nail on the coffin for Amazon was when CGT workers reached out to left-political parties such as Izquierda Unida, who put political pressure on the Regional Assembly of Murcia. With the combined might of political and economic pressures, Amazon was forced to negotiate.
This is in stark contrast to business unionist like Teamster’s President Sean O’Brien who undermines Amazon unionization by cozying up to anti-union ‘strongman’ figures like Trump who are attacking the National Labor Relations Board (a US agency that regulates union organizing and rights in the workplace), or outright refuses to engage with pro-worker political groups, as part of his dead-end “Teamsters vs everyone” strategy.
Next Steps in the Amazon Movement
The fight at RMU1 is just beginning, but we must be clear that the fight to unionize Amazon everywhere is fundamentally an international one. Amazon is a massive company so shutting down a single facility, and in some cases a single country will not be enough. In 2015 when German workers went on strike, Amazon issued a harsh mandatory overtime across facilities in nearby Polish cities, shifting production and distribution to secondary facilities to buy time until the strike was over. This was the catalyst that led to Polish and German workers forming the AWI, the organizing network that hosted the international meeting on February 22. In the US, a country the size of a continent, Amazon can easily shift air cargo and distribution to facilities in other states. A nationwide, and eventually an internationally coordinated movement will be necessary if we are to build real fighting unions capable of winning bold demands at Amazon.
One Mexican activist at the meeting pointed out that in countries like Mexico and India, having the means to coordinate and share strategies and tactics from more experienced facilities is key to being able to achieve unionization in their conditions.
Sultana, an organizer from JFK8 (the only unionized facility in the US) added to this by stating that we need to be organizing international meetings, and international actions with clear visibility, wearing the same shirts, symbols, utilizing the same flyers and logos, regardless of our union affiliation.
Oscar Jover from RMU1 ended his speech at the meeting by boldly stating, “International coordination is not a symbolic slogan; it is a strategic necessity. RMU1 has shown that isolation is not inevitable. The next step is to build a synchronized response at the global level.”
Photo: CGT
