Amazon Labor Puzzle

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, labor issues meet at home relaxation and the holiday toys and games aisle, to quote The Nation, where my next guest is a contributor. Josh Gosfield, our guest for the last part of the show today has been a farmer, carpenter, cartoonist, managing editor, art director, illustrator, fine art painter, photographer, author, and co-founder of a workshop for high school students to discover their vocational futures.

Wow, that's a lot of jobs. Just last year, I also contributed an article on a volunteer basis for a new art magazine that Josh launched called Public Eye. Now he's designed an Amazon labor union success story jigsaw puzzle. I'm not making this up. Joining me now is Josh Gosfield, the award-winning designer and illustrator, and contributor at The Nation who is here to discuss no, not based on all those other past vocations, not cows or how to make a wooden coffee table.

He's here to discuss his project, creating The Nation's new puzzle called Solidarity Forever: Amazon Worker Jigsaw Puzzle. Hi, Josh. Thanks for coming on WNYC.

Josh Gosfield: Hi. Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: We tweeted a photo, I'm telling all the listeners, of this jigsaw puzzle Solidarity Forever. Paint a picture for us, if you will, for people who are just hearing the audio of our conversation.

Josh Gosfield: Sure. As an artist, you're always trying to think of a good metaphor or a good way to describe whatever the subject of your illustration is. When I thought about Jeff Bezos and Amazon, the first thing I thought of was Egyptian art. Jeff Bezos, he's a self-indulgent, filthy rich pharaoh lording over the hordes of Amazon workers. I depicted him as a pharaoh, but interestingly, in Japanese art, you usually find those workers are somewhat passive drones.

I really made an effort to make every single Amazon worker have their own individual style. Their hair, their clothes, and they're doing their work, but they're also organizing against Jeff Bezos, and he's tipping over in his pharaoh's throne. It's really fun and interesting for me to just think about all the incredible jobs that exist within the Amazon infrastructure. Interestingly, political propaganda or political art is supposed to influence other people, but it even influenced me because I started realizing that, "Hey, these guys are not just generic package delivers. They're all humans."

When I walk out in the street now, and also, I always try and carry a puzzle with me and show it to them, and take a picture with them, which is really fun. They're just the nicest people and hey, they're like anybody else. They've got bills to pay, they've got families, they've got health issues and they're just fighting for workers' rights.

Brian Lehrer: I was wondering about the Egyptian motif. It looked like that with the way some of the bodies are positioned, the way this central character in the puzzle, who appears to be an African American woman, perhaps, is holding things up at the center of the puzzle with her hands. Can you talk more about that?

Josh Gosfield: These are the people that are doing all the work. Amazon has over a million employees, to say nothing of all the contract workers. We love it that we just order a package and it shows up the next day, but it's all due to people. They're working in the warehouse.

I tried to depict the entire process. You've got the warehouse workers, you've got the airplane guys, you've got the truckers, you have the smaller vans that come and deliver packages, you've got the bicycle guys and you've got the people who deliver the packages to your home. On the bottom of the puzzle, you have a man and a woman who were carrying on their shoulders like Atlas a gigantic pile of boxes and on the top, you've got where Bezos is being knocked over on the throne. You've got one guy saying, "Back off Bezos," another guy saying, "Fair wages."

All through here, you've got people-- that woman you talk about who's holding up the whole puzzle. It's no union busting. They're asking for all the things that Amazon workers are asking for, sick pay, bathroom breaks, a safe workplace, free elections.

Brian Lehrer: Anybody wants to talk about your fandom of jigsaw puzzles? [laughs] What makes a great jigsaw puzzle, or if you've ever seen a labor-oriented or other social justice jigsaw puzzle before, for Josh Gosfield, who has made one for The Nation, as he's been describing about the Amazon Labor Union success in organizing on Staten Island, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Of all the things you've done in your life, Josh, and all the art you've been involved with, have you ever designed a jigsaw puzzle before?

Josh Gosfield: No. The first time I ever do anything-- The Nation, which is an amazing, scrappy institution that's not working on clickbait, they do reporting, muckraking, and justice fighting. They wrote to me, and they said, "We're doing a jigsaw puzzle, and some of the proceeds are going to be donated to the Amazon Labor Unit." I'm in. You can tell from all the things I've done, Brian, I love being scared.

I love being at the bottom of the learning curve, so no, I've never done a jigsaw puzzle before. I had to study jigsaw puzzles and see what makes them hard to do, what makes them easy to do, but I also just love combining politics and art. My parents were super political, and they were super arty. I always say, "If my mom was around, she would have bought 500 of these puzzles." She would have been so proud of me because there's something so sweet about being able to create art that also can, hopefully, perform a public good.

Brian Lehrer: Now, this is a physical jigsaw puzzle, we should be clear, right? It's not just graphic design.

Josh Gosfield: Yes. 500 pieces.

Brian Lehrer: Do they sell it in stores? Do they sell it on The Nation website? I'm not hocking it. I'm just curious how people can get it.

Josh Gosfield: I am aware that they sell it on The Nation website. I'm not sure where else it might be sold.

Brian Lehrer: How many pieces?

Josh Gosfield: 500.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that's a serious jigsaw puzzle, 500 pieces. You have to be good at jigsaw puzzles to do a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle, right?

Josh Gosfield: Yes. People are sending me a lot of great selfies and puzzle process. Somebody sent me 10 photographs from the very beginning to the very end. It was great to see. I'll have to put it together as an animation.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that would be cool and see it come together as you flip the pages of a flip book or something like that. Did you design what the cuts are, how the 500 pieces are cut, or just the overall work of art that then some jigsaw puzzle expert cut up?

Josh Gosfield: I don't think I could be adding to my careerless jigsaw puzzle cutter now. Those people know how to do that. [laughs] I have no idea.

Brian Lehrer: Wait. Here's Howard in New Jersey who says he has insight on jigsaw puzzle usership because he works in the toy business. Hi, Howard. You're on WNYC.

Howard: Hi, thank you for having me. I've been in the business for about 30 years. My company is Royalty Rights Licensing. I work representing inventors and creators of new stuff. The jigsaw puzzle is an industry that's very, very-- in a certain sense, it has a core group of hustlers, that unique imagery that they can be successful in putting together. It's actually a great direction to go if you're coming up with something unique like you guys are talking about now.

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting. Do you have any idea if jigsaw puzzle usage has gone down in the era of digital everything or if it has gone up during the pandemic era especially at the beginning when so many people were staying home so much?

Howard: It was a boom for the puzzle manufacturers. As a matter of fact, from what I've heard from various companies that I've spoken to, they almost ran out of puzzles, especially the ones that were mostly desirable. It was a huge boost to the industry.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a classic best-selling jigsaw puzzle?

Howard: It's hard to say because if you focus on who the core puzzler is it was defined and now I think it's probably moved away from the women who stayed home that are a certain demographic. I think that it's really hard to say the demo. I think now it's expanded with the family activity with what was going on with COVID. It was the same with gains as you know the category really exploded during COVID for sure and actually brought a lot of families together doing non-digital stuff which is really one of the core things that [unintelligible 00:10:49] we're supposed to do.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. The core jigsaw puzzle user of the past was a stay-at-home mom with kids. Really interesting. Howard, thank you very much. Since this conversation as jigsaw puzzle meets labor issues, we just had the jigsaw puzzle expert caller who knew there would be such a person out there. Now we have the labor issue activist Lori in Westchester. You're on WNYC. Hi, Lori.

Lori: Hi. I think this jigsaw is wonderful. I think it points to the fact that more and more people are actually organizing which I think is actually a great thing. I also wanted to mention and clarify that those delivery workers are all contract workers, which means that they get no benefits, they get no health insurance, or anything else.

They're not even considered Amazon employees. If they get hurt on the job, it's all on them. If they need a sick day, it's all on them. I just wanted to clarify that.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very, very much. Go ahead, Josh.

Josh Gosfield: Brian, that's a total truth. It's like the bike messengers who work for Uber Eats, what these corporations do is they outsource to other companies and everybody's contract workers. They're treated even worse than the actual Amazon workers. I think they can all be somewhat thought of in the same way. They are essential workers. They are the people who are delivering our food, delivering our packages at Starbucks making us coffee in the morning.

They're not just the industrial workers. We think of unionizing in the past and the mines or the factories, they're the people who are servicing us. It's really tragic. I saw Chris Smalls, who's the president of the Amazon Labor Union at a rally recently, and he was saying, where are the progressives? Where are the progressives? It's true, there's a million Amazon workers and I don't know what the number is for contract workers, but it's huge.

That's another huge number. One thing I hope to do with this puzzle in my own little way is to raise awareness about the fact that these people are not being compensated or treated well for the importance of their labor.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to give Thelma in Montreal the last 20 seconds of our calling portion of the show because then we're going to be out of time. Thelma, you're on WNYC. Hi. 20 seconds. Go.

Thelma: Hi, Josh. I just have a quick question. Do you plan to follow up with other puzzles like the human rights violations in Iran or women's rights climate change fallout with the refugee crisis?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. You've got the makings of a whole series of jigsaw puzzles here, Josh. We have 20 seconds.

Josh Gosfield: I would love nothing more. This project has just been so incredibly rewarding and fulfilling for me.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Josh Gosfield: See what else we can do.

Brian Lehrer: Right. We'll see how this sells as a holiday gift or in any other way. I did just out of curiosity, by the way. I just did a search on Amazon site and apparently, you cannot buy this jigsaw puzzle on Amazon from what I could tell. Just thought you'd like to know. That will do it with Josh Gosfield, who is the award-winning designer and illustrator, and contributor to The Nation who is now designed for them, and the Amazon Labor Union Jigsaw puzzle. Josh, it was fun. Thanks a lot.

Josh Gosfield: Thank you, Brian. Have a great day.

 

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