Joe Biden has effectively approved ongoing syndication efforts at an Amazon facility in Alabama state and warned the e-commerce giant that its efforts to shut down the unit should involve “no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda.”
Amazon workers have been complaining about everything for a long time exhausting hours and fees in exchange for low compensation a surprising levels of injuries in the warehouse, dangerous conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, dystopian workplace surveillance, disregard for the driver’s tip, i retaliation treatment of especially frank employees. For the course, Amazon has resisted the work of labor organizers to convince about 6,000 employees in a distribution center in the predominantly black city of Bessemer, Alabama, to vote in favor of joining the Union of Retailers, Wholesalers and Department Stores, as well as organizing efforts more generally, using techniques generally common in corporate America, but they are deploying with particular zeal from the e-commerce titan.
Amazon has bombarded workers with anti-union propaganda, sent them text messages in favor of management, published job postings for experts in destroying unions, and forced them to attend mandatory meetings. In Alabama, Amazon executives sought to have in charge of the National Board of Labor Relationsdo a union vote as well as try to force the vote in person during the coronavirus pandemic. Labor organizers they have told the media that the workers of the installation have been captive public of the obligatory anti-union meetings and that the managers tried to intimidate the workers who challenge the information given in these sessions photographing their work badges. Still, the election continues on Amazon’s terms tried to prevent, made by email votes that will be counted March 30th. The stakes are high: if workers successfully form Amazon’s first union in Alabama, it’s likely to trigger a wave of union campaigns in other jobs. A recent nationwide survey shared with Gizmodo showed that the vast majority of hundreds of Amazon drivers surveyed supported the formation of their own unions.
In a video message posted on Twitter about “workers in Alabama” on Sunday, Biden reiterated his support for unions and said he would keep his “promise” to support organizational efforts. He didn’t mention Amazon by name, though there was no doubt which employer he was calling.
“You all have to remember that the National Labor Relations Act not only said that the existence of unions was allowed, but it said that we should encourage unions,” Biden said. “Let it be clear: it is not up to me to decide whether someone should join a union. But let me be even clearer: a businessman doesn’t have to decide either ”.
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“The choice to join a union is up to the workers: point and end. Point,Biden continued. “Today and for the next few days and weeks, workers in Alabama and across America are voting on whether to organize a union in their workplace. This is vital, a vital option, as America faces the deadly pandemic, the economic crisis and the calculation of race, which reveals the deep disparities that still exist in our country.
“And there should be no intimidation, coercion, threats or anti-union propaganda,” Biden concluded. “No supervisor should confront employees about their union preferences … All workers should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees this election. And it’s your right, not an employer’s, it’s your right. No employer can take it immediately. “
He The New York Times wrote it is “unusual” for presidents to weigh in on specific labor disputes (a feeling that can only go in one direction, given the last administration hostile non-stop position towards the labor movement and attempts to destroy federal union). The Washington Post wrote that Biden’s rebuttal is “striking” because Amazon’s senior vice president of global affairs, plain corporate mouthpiece Jay Carney, served as White House press secretary under the administration of Barack Obama and Biden. Carney was undoubtedly taken to the expectation that his tenure in the executive branch could help the company grease D’s wheels.C.
Faiz Shakir, former aide to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is the founder of More Perfect Union, one of many labor advocacy groups who have urged Biden to speak out in favor of Alabama’s union effort. Shakir told the newspaper that Biden’s statement was the largest demonstration of support for White House unionization in many years.
“We have not had this aggressive and positive statement from a statement by a U.S. president on behalf of workers in decades,” Shakir said. “It is monumental to have a president send a message to workers across the country that if you take the brave step to start unionizing you will have allies in the administration, the NLRB and the Department of Labor. It means a lot.”
“It’s almost unprecedented in American history,” Erik Loomis, a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island, also told the Post. “We have the feeling that the presidents before the middle of the twentieth century were openly trade unionists, but this was not really the case. Even [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] he never really came out and told workers directly to support a union. ”
While Biden’s support for the Amazon effort is an important development, undoing the damage of the Trump era to the labor movement and to institutions like the NLRB will not happen on a calendar close to night. The NLRB was controlled by Trump nominees they eagerly used their power launching violent aggression against workers ’rights, their ability to organize, and rules that hold employers accountable.
The new acting director general of the Biden administration in the NLRB, Peter Sung’s ear, has pushed back numerous Trump-era directives. But Biden does yet to act turned on major labor law reforms such as the proposed Right to Organize Act, which would add teeth to the NLRB’s regulatory authority, as well as prevent employers from forcing unions to negotiate deadlocks and implement pro-management contracts.