Thursday, May 07, 2020

MAY DAY AT THE AMAZON WAREHOUSE

David Bacon Fotografias y Historias
MAY DAY AT THE AMAZON WAREHOUSE
Photos by David Bacon
RICHMOND, CA, 5/1/20
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2020/05/may-day-at-amazon-warehouse.html



For a full set of images, click here:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums/72157714198371078


I was three when my mother and father took me to one of the last May Day marches and rallies in New York City's Union Square.  Police and rightwing golpeadores (beaters, as they're called in Mexico) attacked the people in the square, mostly families like ours.  I remember the fear and people running.  Reading about it now, I know they held banners calling for freedom for Willie McGee and other Black prisoners, and protesting the Taft-Hartley law used to drive radicals out of unions and workplaces.

May Day started in the U.S., honoring the Haymarket martyrs in Chicago, executed because they hated capitalism and fought for the eight-hour day.  But after those Cold War years of the early 1950s, in this country May Day was called the Communist holiday.  In every other country but ours, thousands - even millions - of workers would take the day off and honor themselves - the working class.  Here, if you used the words, "working class" and tried to celebrate May Day you were called a red.  You'd lose your job.

That all changed in 2006.  Millions of immigrants in this country, from countries where May Day is the workers' holiday, marched and defeated Congressman James Sensenbrenner's proposal to make felons of every undocumented immigrant.  I was there at the biggest one - two marches of a million people each in Los Angeles.  I thank the immigrants who recovered May Day for us, in the land where it started.



Since then I've taken my camera to May Day demonstrations wherever I found them. This year I went out to the huge Amazon warehouse in Richmond, to photograph the workers organizing for simple, basic things - a wage raise, a health plan and protection from being unjustly fired.  Most important this year, people want protection from the virus.  Workers in warehouses and meatpacking plants and labor camps around the country are getting sick and dying.

So people stood at that appropriate physical distance on the sidewalk on Giant Highway, across the parking lot from the warehouse.  They called it Essential Workers Day, recognizing the essential nature of the work people are doing during the pandemic.  It was a good name for May Day this year.  But the hypocrisy wasn't lost on anyone - calling people essential and then forcing them to risk their lives in unsafe workplaces for close to minimum wage.




Dionte came out of the warehouse on break, spoke up, and then went back to work.  It takes courage to do that.

I've been in the Amazon warehouse here for a few weeks, but I've been working in warehouses for 15 or 20 years. They should be paying us more.  We put our health on the line to work here.  They just want to make sure the packages get out.  But we should be compensated for that.  Just $2 more an hour wouldn't hurt the CEO.  He wouldn't even notice it.

Why don't they just give everybody what we're asking for - $2 an hour raise, better safety precautions.  A union would be great.  They treat you a lot better if there's a union.


[. . .]



TAKE A VIRTUAL TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION - IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH
at the History Museum of Tijuana

HAGA UN RECORRIDO VIRTUAL DE LA EXPOSICIÓN - EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE
en el Museo de Historia de Tijuana



https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=659536991515786
 

TARTINE HARDSHIP FUND
Newly organized Tartine Bakery workers in the Bay Area need your help and assistance!  This fund, supported by the International Longhsore and Warehouse Union, will help hose workers unable to collect unemployment insurance.  

The exhibitions in the following list were scheduled before the current COVID-19 crisis.  Public gatherings are not now taking place and these exhibitions have now been postponed or rescheduled.

Stay healthy!

DOCUMENTING RESISTANCE -
Community Organizing Beyond the Farmworkers' Movement
Photographs by David Bacon

February 18 - March 27
Powell Library Rotunda, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA

IN WASHINGTON’S FIELDS: Photographs by David Bacon

February 1-May 10, 2020
Washington State History Museum
1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, WA

IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE

March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020
Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos
March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock

MORE THAN A WALL - THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS OF THE BORDER

August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020
San Francisco Public Library

DEPORTATIONS

April 10, 2020 - May 1, 2020
Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago
 

In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte
Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte
302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9”
paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)

order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu/9780520296077
use source code  16M4197  at checkout, receive a 30% discount

En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https://www.colef.mx

Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - click here
 

 "The Criminalization of Migration: A Socialist Perspective" with David Bacon and Rafael Pizarro.
http://ouleft.org/wp-content/uploads/David-Bacon-The-Criminalization-of-migration.mp4 

A video about the Social Justice Photography of David Bacon:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14TvAj5nS08ENzWhw3Oxra4LMNKJCLF4z/view
 

En los campos del Norte documenta la vida de trabajadores agrícolas en Estados Unidos -
Entrevista con el Instituto Nacional de la Antropologia y Historia
http://www.inah.gob.mx/es/boletines/6863-en-los-campos-del-norte-documenta-la-vida-de-trabajadores-agricolas-en-estados-unidos

Entrevista en la television de UNAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSaBKZ_k0o

David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia
http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18

Trabajo agrícola, migración y resistencia cultural: el mosaico de los “Campos del Norte”
Entrevista de David Bacon por Iván Gutiérrez / A los 4 Vientos
http://www.4vientos.net/2017/10/04/trabajo-agricola-migracion-y-resistencia-cultural-el-mosaico-de-los-campos-del-norte/

"Los fotógrafos tomamos partido"
Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto
http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.htmlDie Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990
EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE:  Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall
http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7
Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.be
 
THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
Books by David Bacon

The Right to Stay Home:  How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration  (Beacon Press, 2013)
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants  (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx

Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350

The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726

En Español:

EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA  (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html

HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1

For more articles and images, see  http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums
















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