According to reports, Amazon is trying to ban employees of an Alabama store from participating in an upcoming syndication vote with postal votes.
What is the background?
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a significant portion of U.S. voters participated in the 2020 election by email voting. In fact, data from the Pew Research Center found that nearly half of American voters (46%) cast a ballot in absentia or by email.
Democrats strongly pushed postal voting, probably because postal voting would allow more voters to participate in the electoral process. However, Republicans generally opposed the postal vote, arguing that holding a large portion of the election by mail potentially increased the potential for voter fraud to harm the integrity of the election.
What about Amazon?
Amazon filed an appeal Thursday before the National Labor Relations Board over the agency’s decision to allow nearly 6,000 employees working inside Amazon’s warehouse to participate in unionization elections by mail voting.
Instead, Amazon wants the choices to be made in person.
From the Washington Post:
Amazon argued in one of the two files that the agency’s pandemic voting policy is flawed, in part because it doesn’t define what a covid-19 “outbreak” really is. This guide “reflected the assumptions developed comparatively earlier in the pandemic, before scientific understanding of the virus had been developed, and possible precautions as far as it is today,” Amazon says in the presentation.
In fact, Lisa Henderson, the acting regional director of the NLRB’s Atlanta office, told Amazon that demanding the vote on unionization in person “could deprive voters who have covid-19 or are concerned about the right to vote. to contract the disease, ”the Post reported.
“An election by email voting will entitle employees who are unable to enter the polling station for health reasons or for positive COVID testing,” the NLRB decision stated, CNN reported. “In addition, postal voting elections will protect the health and safety of voters, Agency staff, party representatives and the public during the current health crisis.”
What did Amazon say?
Amazon spokeswoman Heather Knox told CNN in a statement that Amazon is fighting for face-to-face elections because it is “the best approach for valid, fair and successful elections that are done manually, in person, which makes it easier for partners to verify and cast your vote very close to your place of work “.
The effort of Bessemer workers to unionize is the first of Amazon’s employees in seven years.