Right before the Christmas of 2021, management at Amazon’s KSBD Air Cargo Hub, located in San Bernardino, CA, told us that for the next week, the building would be closed- with no pay for the workers. Losing five days of pay with barely a week’s notice didn’t sit right with a lot of people, especially with many working paycheck to paycheck.

So, we rallied around the justified anger at the consequences of a lost week of pay, and wrote up a petition calling for a limit on holiday closures and backpay for the time lost in the initial closure. About 200 of our coworkers signed it, and then a group of about 30 of us took the petition up to the boss. 

Unfortunately, the shutdown went as planned, and workers were not given pay during their forced time off. But, their voices were still heard, and results still came from their demands, even if it was a little different than what they hoped for. In February of 2022, a month or so after the closure, Amazon announced that they were going to change their policy on holiday closures. Now, during any future holiday closure, only one of the five planned closure dates would be unpaid. And to make up for the lost pay caused by the initial closure, workers at KSBD were allowed as much overtime (OT) as they wanted for a month following the announced change in policy. 

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Photo credit: Amazonians United

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Article by Capital and Main