The Amazon warehouse at the center of a popular union drive is seen on March 29 in Bessemer, Alabama.
Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images
hide captions
switch captions
Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images
The Amazon warehouse at the center of a popular union drive is seen on March 29 in Bessemer, Alabama.
Elijah Nouvelage / Getty Images
Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama are having a new vote on whether to set up the company’s first union warehouse in the United States.
A US labor council official is asking for a re-vote after a dealer review found Amazon inappropriately pressured warehouse workers to vote against joining the union, spoiling the original election enough to spoil its outcome. The decision was issued on Monday by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board. Amazon is expected to appeal.
The news brought the warehouse in Bessemer, a suburb of Birmingham, back into the spotlight as a sign of efforts to organize labor at Amazon, now America’s second-largest privately held company with more than 950,000 employees.
The union is being led by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Alliance. Its President, Stuart Appelbaum praised today’s development:
“Today’s decision confirms what we’ve said so far – that Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say about whether they wanted a union in their workplace. “
In the first attempt in early 2021 – billed as the most consequential union election in recent history – Bessemer Workers voted more than 2 to 1 against unity. It was a stinging failure to Amazon’s high-profile attempt to organize US workers, after receiving support across the country, including from President Biden, other politicians and celebrities.
That vote, checked in April, was held by mail due to concerns about the pandemic. More than half of the warehouse staff voted.
The union filed a legal challenge to the election, accusing Amazon of engaging in unfair labor practices. Amazon refuses the fee. NLRB holds a hearing before the hearing officer recommended last month part of the Bessemer election.
Amazon appealed against the recommendation, saying it did not act illegally or intimidate workers and called on the agency and union to accept Bessemer workers’ choice. The union asserted that Amazon “was cheated (and) arrested.”
Unions are Amazon’s prominent presence in Europe, but the company has so far resisted efforts to organize labor in the United States. The election in Bessemer is first union vote since 2014. Teamsters’ union passed a solution that would prioritize its Amazon consolidation campaign.
In October, workers from a cluster of Staten Island warehouses in New York federal officials petition for a union election, but then The request has been withdrawn.
Previously, the NLRB hearing shed new light on Amazon anti-union campaign in the Bessemer election. A warehouse employee testified that during required meetings on the premises, managers said the fulfillment center could close if employees voted unanimously. Other workers said they were told the union would waste their wages on vacations and luxury cars.
A major controversy has arisen around a new mailbox in the warehouse’s private parking lot that Amazon says has been installed by the US Postal Service to make voting “convenient, secure and private”. “. However, placing the mailbox inside an Amazon tent right next to work has some employees wondering if the company is trying to track the vote.
Postal Service official Jay Smith, who works as a liaison for large customers like Amazon, testified that he was surprised to see the company-branded tent around the mailbox because the company appeared to have figure out how to get around his clear instructions not to put anything in the body. on the mailbox.
But Smith and other Postal Service officials also testified that no one at Amazon was given keys to access outgoing mail or, in this case, election ballots. An Amazon union advocate said at the hearing that he saw the company’s security agents open the mailbox.
Editor’s Note: Amazon is one of NPR’s financial backers.
Stephan Bisaha of Gulf States Newspapers contributed to this report.
