Adrien, Gauche Révolutionnaire (CWI in France)
At the Montélimar Amazon fulfillment center in Southeastern France, an employee was fired for “breach of his duty of loyalty to his company” following a Facebook post supporting Yellow Vests calling for “economic blockades,” which he shared on his wall. This is not the first time that Amazon has fired an employee for such reasons. On December 27, an employee at the Amazon warehouse in Lauwin-Planque in Northern France suffered the same repression from his company. Other dismissals for similar reasons have continued to occur since then.
At the Montélimar Amazon fulfillment center in Southeastern France, an employee was fired for “breach of his duty of loyalty to his company” following a Facebook post supporting Yellow Vests calling for “economic blockades,” which he shared on his wall. This is not the first time that Amazon has fired an employee for such reasons. On December 27, an employee at the Amazon warehouse in Lauwin-Planque in Northern France suffered the same repression from his company. Other dismissals for similar reasons have continued to occur since then.
This company, owned by the world’s richest man – Jeff Bezos, with 137 billions dollars – would like to be able to freely exploit its employees, with lower wages and increasingly precarious contracts. But it would also like these same employees to suffer in silence and remain stoically at their workstations rather than defend their rights, their livelihoods, menaced by the capitalist system, under pain of being fired for serious misconduct.
Following this unjustified and repressive dismissal, Montélimar Amazon workers organized two walkouts on February 1 to demand the reinstatement of their comrade.
On Tuesday, February 5, in response to the call of Yellow Vests and the CGT, the main trade union federation in France, Montélimar Amazon employees went on strike. Starting in the morning, the strikers were joined by the Yellow Vests all day long. In the afternoon, the CGT organized a mobilization to support the strikers and demanded the reinstatement of the dismissed employee. A good number of trucks were able to be blocked. But Amazon still refuses to reinstate the employee and is upholding the firing. It is through our massive mobilization that the balance of power will change.
To get there, this is how we must move forward: Yellow Vests and Red Vests (CGT) together – same Macron, same bosses, same fight!
Everywhere, at every company, we should be free to express our opinions without our employers trying to spy on us, whether in our private lives, on Facebook, or even in our workplaces. We must organize to fight against the capitalist system, which benefits only the rich and the bosses who exploit us, and stand up to their repression. For these injustices to cease, the only solution is a real general strike in all sectors of the economy, indefinite and well-prepared; for workers to take control of their workplaces by establishing real democratic management of the company and of production. It is we who produce all the riches, and therefore it is by us and for us that production and distribution must be organized. For this, the main sectors of the economy, including commerce and logistics/distribution, must be nationalized and made public. This is the basis of socialism, the society for which we are fighting, and which will put an end to misery, unemployment and exploitation.