Jennifer Bates was among the group of warehouse workers who initiated the process of forming a union at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. Now, nearly a year later, Jennifer has testified in front of Congress and become one of the faces of the historic Amazon union drive that is currently underway. In the latest installment of our special series “Battleground Bessemer,” TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez sits down with Bates at the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) Mid-South Council headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. Alvarez and Bates discuss the tireless efforts by workers and RWDSU organizers to make the union vote a success, to combat Amazon’s constant union-busting efforts, and to spread the word to workers around the world that it’s time “to stand up and stand out.”

To see more of our in-depth coverage of the historic Amazon union drive in Bessemer, which we’ll be bringing you throughout the month of March, subscribe to our YouTube and podcast channels, and visit the “Battleground Bessemer” series page on our website.  

Creative Commons License

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Maximillian Alvarez is an Izzy-Award-winning journalist and the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Executive Director of The Real News Network. He is the founder and host of Working People, "a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today," which he started after his family lost their home and life savings during the Financial Crash of 2008 and the ensuing Great Recession. Alvarez is the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke, a collection of interviews with US workers recorded during Year One of of the Covid-19 pandemic. His forthcoming book—tentatively titled “American Sacrifice: Working People Fight for The Lives (and Our Future) in America’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’”—is under contract with Haymarket Books. From April 2022 to March 2024, Alvarez hosted and produced The Art of Class War series on Breaking Points. From September 2016 to January 2019, he was a regular contributor and then a columnist for The Baffler magazine. Prior to joining TRNN, Alvarez was an Associate Editor at the Chronicle Review at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Prior to that, he was a graduate student-worker and rank-and-file member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (AFT Local 3550) at the University of Michigan, where he earned a dual-PhD in History and Comparative Literature, taught undergraduates, and published academic articles in Media Theory and La Deleuziana: An Online Journal of Philosophy. Prior to that, he worked a litany of low-wage jobs in different restaurants, warehouses, factories, retail stores, etc. Alvarez’s writing has been featured in outlets like The Nation, Poynter, In These Times, Boston Review, The Baffler, Current Affairs, Dissent, Protean Magazine, The New Republic, Truthout, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. As an analyst and commentator, he has appeared on programs like PBS NewsHour, Breaking Points, Democracy Now!, The Laura Flanders Show, NPR’s 1A, The Hill’s Rising, This Is Hell!, Krystal Kyle & Friends, The Michael Brooks Show, The Jacobin Show, CounterPunch Radio, Citations Needed, Bad Faith with Briahna Joy Gray, Know Your Enemy, Srsly Wrong, Left Anchor, Revolutionary Left Radio, The End of Sport Podcast, Pod Damn America, The David Pakman Show, The Megyn Kelly Show, The Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, The David Feldman Show, and The Marianne Williamson Podcast.