A retail union representative holds a sign by an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., during the first union election in March 2021.
Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images
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Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images
A retail union representative holds a sign by an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., during the first union election in March 2021.
Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama will vote for a second time on whether to unionize. A yes vote would be groundbreaking, creating the company’s first consolidated warehouse in the United States.
Ballots will be mailed out on Friday to more than 6,100 workers at the warehouse in Bessemer, a suburb of Birmingham. They will vote by mail due to the pandemic, and the counting of votes is scheduled to begin on March 28.
The re-vote is an impressive new chapter in one of the largest union efforts at Amazon, which has grown into the country’s second-largest private employer. This is the second attempt by the Bessemer workers who last spring categorically refuse to merge. Now they can try again after a federal judgment was found Amazon unfairly influenced the first election.
“That loss is motivating us to win more,” Bessemer worker Kristina Bell told reporters on a call organized by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Alliance. , an organization that represents Amazon workers.
A few things have changed since last year’s election.
Nationwide, massive wave of resignations sweep the economyPunctuated by senior warning and labor campaigns. Among them, Starbucks workers merge at two locations in New Yorkmake the union petition from more than 50 other stores across 19 states.
At Amazon, workers at two other warehouses in New York are asking to form a union. The organizer at one of them collected enough signatures to get a union vote. The the push is led by a group of fledgling workers of current and former employees, not affiliated with any professional union.
At the Bessemer warehouse, high turnover means that almost half of the workers will vote in favor of the union for the first time. Pro-union workers hope this means a fresh outcome after last year’s landslide loss in which 71% of voters opposed unions. Hundreds of employees did not vote in the original election.
Union advocates at the Bessemer warehouse say they now have a much larger organizing effort, wearing union t-shirts at work, knocking on doors, speaking more at mandatory “information sessions” of Amazon about unions and organizing protests.
Amazon fought the union, arguing it was unnecessary.
The company now employs 1.1 million people in the US, Most of them sort, pick and pack in the company’s vast warehouses. Amazon’s minimum wage is still $15 an hour, but during last year’s big hiring spree, Amazon said Its average starting salary is $18 an hour. The company touts its health and educational benefits.
An aerial image shows Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, where more than 6,100 workers are deciding whether to merge.
Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
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Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
An aerial image shows Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, where more than 6,100 workers are deciding whether to merge.
Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
Amazon spokeswoman Barbara Agrait said: “Our employees always have the choice of whether or not to join a union, and our focus remains on working directly with our team to make Amazon the one. a great place to work.”
Under close scrutiny of its employee policies, Amazon in December reach a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to make it easier for employees to organize. The agreement requires Amazon to notify hundreds of thousands of workers about their labor rights.
The company faces several allegations of unfair labor practices, which the company denies. Most recently, a pro-union worker in Bessemer accused Amazon about surveying him and giving him warnings about his organizational work. At the Staten Island warehouse, NLRB itself accused Amazon of illegally threatening, interrogating and surveying workers.
Bessemer’s union push gained national attention.
At first, organizing labor seemed to have taken Amazon by surprise. Historically, unions have been a hard sell in Southern states such as Alabama.
Just a few months after the Amazon warehouse opened in Bessemer, some workers quietly contact retail union. The pandemic spread quickly, and shoppers increasingly turned to Amazon. Workers describe productivity quotas as grueling and want more opinions on how employees at the company are performing, disciplined, or fired.
Bessemer union vote to become Amazon’s for the first time since 2014when a small group of Delaware workers vote against unify. At a time when US union membership was in historic lowsFamous campaign at a booming major employer has attracted big-name advocates: President BidenSen. Marco Rubioactor Danny Glover and other politicians and celebrities.
However, a consolidation effort targeting thousands of workers in a fast-changing workplace run by one of the world’s most valuable corporations and staunchly anti-union could lose years and many elections, labor experts say.
“To win an NLRB election is like a marathon in a minefield for public advocates,” said John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University. group. “It took an incredible amount of time.”
An unexpected argument broke out over a mailbox.
When the NLRB ordered Bessemer union elections to be re-done, officials ruled that Amazon anti-union campaign spoil the results. One main reason have to do with a mailbox that the U.S. Postal Service installed in the warehouse parking lot at Amazon’s request.
At the behest of the NLRB, by doing so, Amazon “defeats” the election. Although the company argued that its purpose was to make voting convenient, workers testified that a mailbox inside the Amazon tent next to the workplace was thoroughly checked making them feel uncomfortable. that their employer is monitoring the vote.
The NLRB directed the USPS to move the inbox to “a neutral location” on the Amazon property, and that it be located further away from the building in a different parking area. Last week, union claim NLRB to completely delete the mailbox, arguing that no Amazon property can be neutral.
Editor’s Note: Amazon is one of NPR’s financial backers.
