Interview with Angelika Maldonado, the twenty-seven-year-old chair of ALU’s Workers Committee.
”
There are a lot of different types of people who work at JFK8; it’s really diverse in age, race, and where people live — people commute here from all over. But one of the main divisions was age. Keep in mind that the average age of an ALU organizer is about twenty-six — many older workers tended to be more skeptical of the union.
The culture at Amazon is very intense and intimidating, so when a lot of older workers first saw a bunch of young people trying to organize something so big, it was hard for some of them to grasp that we actually knew what we wanted and that we knew how to get there. “
“we overcame the age gap mostly just by being relatable and personable — honestly, that’s how we won this election. I’d ask coworkers, “What if your grandkids have to work here? What if your children have to? Yeah, you might be older than me, but I’m a mom also, and we want the same things, right?”
https://jacobinmag.com/2022/04/amazon-labor-union-alu-staten-island-organizing/