Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, handed the online retail giant a decisive victory when they voted against forming a union and cut a path that labor activists had hoped would lead to similar efforts in the whole company and beyond.
After months of aggressive campaigns on both sides, 1,798 warehouse workers rejected the union while 738 voted in favor, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees the process.
Of the 3,117 votes cast, 76 were annulled for incorrect filling and 505 were answered by Amazon or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which led the organizational efforts at Bessemer. But the NLRB said the contested votes were not enough to influence the outcome. About 53% of the nearly 6,000 workers have voted.
The union said it would file an objection to the NLRB accusing the company of illegally interfering with the union vote. He will request a hearing with the board to determine whether the results “should be set aside” after he accused Amazon of disseminating information about the unionization effort at meetings workers had to attend.
“Amazon has left no stone unturned in its efforts to shed light on its own employees. We will not let Amazon’s lies, deceptions and illegal activities be unquestionable,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU.
Amazon said in a statement that it did not intimidate employees.
“Our employees heard many more anti-Amazon messages from the union, policy makers and the media than they heard from us,” the company said. “And Amazon didn’t win: our employees chose to vote against joining a union.”
Union momentum was the most important in Amazon’s 26-year history and only the second time an organizational effort by the company has been voted on. But Bessemer has always been seen as a shot since he pitted the country’s second-largest employer against warehouse workers in a state with laws that don’t favor unions. Alabama is one of 27 “right to work” states in which workers do not have to pay dues to the unions that represent them.
It was unexpected for Bessemer’s labor movement to get this far. Amazon has an unbeaten track record of ripping off union efforts before they can spread. And at a time when the economy is still trying to recover and companies have eliminated jobs, it is one of the few jobs it still hires during the pandemic, as it added 500,000 workers last year alone.
But the pandemic also revealed inequalities in the workforce, as many had to find out about their jobs even while the coronavirus was raging, which raised health and safety concerns. Organizational efforts in Bessemer coincided with protests across the country following the police assassination of George Floyd, awareness of racial injustice, and fueling frustration over how warehouse workers are treated ( more than 80% of which are black), with 10 -hours of packing and loading of boxes and only two 30-minute breaks.
At a press conference held by Amazon, four workers at the Bessemer warehouse said that talking about abuse by the company was the opinion of some workers, not all.
“We are very sorry that his experience has not been the same as ours,” said Will Stokes, one of the warehouse workers who voted against the union.
The organizing effort inside the Bessemer warehouse began last summer when a group of workers approached RWDSU to form a union. The movement has gained momentum since then, attracting the attention of professional athletes, Hollywood stars and high-profile elected officials, including President Joe Biden.
During the voting process, workers were inundated with messages from Amazon and the union. Amazon hung anti-union posters all over the store and held mandatory meetings to convince workers why the union was a bad idea. He also argued that it already offered more than double the minimum wage in Alabama plus benefits without paying union dues.
Meanwhile, union organizers stayed outside the warehouse doors trying to talk to people driving in and out of work. He also called for volunteers to call all about 6,000 workers, promising that a union would lead to better working conditions, better pay and more respect.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive icon who traveled to Alabama for a pro-union rally last month, said he was “disappointed but not surprised by the vote.”
“It is extraordinarily brave for workers to take on one of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world, a company that spent unlimited money to defeat the organizational effort,” it said in a statement.
Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University Business School, says Amazon stores are “juicy targets of opportunities” for unions because they can be organized one at a time. The company employs more than 950,000 full-time and part-time workers in the United States and nearly 1.3 million worldwide. In addition, the status of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world makes it easy to criticize, especially when his company made record profits last year, which rose 84% to to $ 21 billion.
Cohen, who used to be a Sears Canada executive, defined retail as a “tough and tough” industry, adding that Bezos has built a performance-based culture with expectations of performance and productivity at all levels up in the store. If this is not your concert, don’t go and work for them. “
The National Retail Federation, which represents Walmart, Target and other large retailers, gave a tone of relief after the vote to Bessemer.
“Union representation is an option for workers, but clearly many prefer opportunities in a competitive market that provides strong wages and benefits over the anonymity of a collective bargaining agreement,” said David French, spokesman for the federation.
Unions have lost ground nationally for decades since their heyday in the decades following World War II. In 1970, nearly a third of the U.S. workforce belonged to a union. In 2020, that figure was 10.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private sector workers now account for less than half of the country’s 14.3 million unions.
Richard Bensinger, former organizing director of the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Automobile, noted the large number of workers who did not vote for Bessemer: “For me, this is all about paralysis, fear. they want to support the company, but they are afraid to defend the union. “
Despite the union defeat, Lynne Vincent, a professor at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management, believes the momentum of the labor movement will continue to grow, with more Amazon workers considering unionization and the possibility of changing jobs. labor laws to give employers less advantage.
“I don’t think Amazon can breathe comfortably,” he said.
Emmit Ashford, an Amazon union worker in Bessemer who spoke at a press conference held by the retail union, said he would not give up.
“This is just a spark that has caused the fire,” Ashford said. “We will continue to fight. This experience has united us. Our time will come again and we will win next time. “
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Follow Joseph Pisani on Twitter: @ josephpisani