Earlier this year, Amazon’s plan to build a massive new fulfillment center in the sleepy Vermont town of Essex hit a hard-fought snag. The online retail and logistics monopoly wanted to erect a 100,000 square foot warehouse that would have been its first shipping and storage facility the state, and it had petitioned the town’s Development Review Board for approval — an often perfunctory step in the development process. Except, this time it wasn’t.
Amazon has made enemies across the economy, certainly including independent booksellers that Amazon’s tried to bury under its unceasing corporate bullying and monopoly power. No surprise, then, that Vermont’s own Phoenix Books and a longtime organizer and bookseller named Joanna Grossman led the effort to try to stop Amazon from gaining a foothold in Vermont.
Residents in Essex and beyond worried about the warehouses’ impact on nearby traffic and noise. But Grossman, Phoenix Books owner Mike DeSanto and many others also understood that welcoming Amazon to the state would mean welcoming a cutthroat monopolist that bullied small businesses, crushed union organizing efforts in its warehouses, and collaborated with ICE thugs. So after more than 100 local residents showed up to demand that the Board reject Amazon’s proposal, the town did just that after finding Amazon had not thoroughly studied the facility’s local impact and had cut corners with the state. Amazon has of course appealed, but Grossman’s organizing chops and the town’s refusal to let a notoriously abusive monopolist waltz into their state won the day.
In our latest episode of the Who Shall Rule podcast, we talk to Joanna about the fight against Amazon, and what communities can do to resist corporate power.
