The real monster isn’t hiding in the warehouse.
It’s in the scanner, the algorithm, the productivity metric, the union-busting meeting, the legal delay, and the idea that workers should be grateful just to survive.
In Episode 27 of The Bigfoot Manifesto, Dave Pederson talks with Derrick Palmer, co-founder of the Amazon Labor Union, one of the worker-organizers behind the historic JFK8 victory on Staten Island, and author of Handbook for the Revolution: Building a More Perfect Union for the Twenty-First Century.
Derrick also appeared in Dave’s film Americonned, and this conversation brings that story into the present: the warehouse economy, corporate power, worker dignity, organizing from inside the machine, and what happens after workers win a union election but still have to fight for a contract.
Dave and Derrick dig into Amazon’s metric-driven workplace, surveillance, fear, worker burnout, the pandemic breaking point, how private anger becomes collective strength, and why Derrick wrote a handbook instead of just a memoir.
They also talk about what workers should do first when they think their workplace needs a union, how to build trust inside a workplace, why winning the union vote is not the finish line, and how corporations use delay as a weapon against worker power.
Bigfoot may leave footprints. Amazon leaves time-off-task reports.
But Derrick Palmer and the workers at JFK8 proved that even one of the most powerful corporations on Earth can be challenged when workers stop accepting the story they’ve been sold and start building power together.
Guest: Derrick Palmer Co-founder, Amazon Labor Union Author, Handbook for the Revolution
Buy Derrick Palmer’s book: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250455338/handbookfortherevolution/
Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1: https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/
Contact Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1: https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/contact
Organize with Teamsters Amazon Division: https://teamster.org/divisions/amazon-division/
Know your rights during union organizing: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/your-rights-during-union-organizing
Watch Americonned on Gathr: https://gathr.com/vod/c1a0e0ba
The Bigfoot Manifesto: https://bigfootmanifesto.com/