Amazon.com Inc. intends to postpone a unionization vote at an Alabama warehouse and calls on federal labor authorities to reconsider the decision to allow postal voting because of the pandemic.
The company filed an appeal Thursday for a decision by the National Labor Relations Board, which allows for an emailing process due to the risks of Covid-19 rather than the face-to-face elections that are typical in these votes. of unionization.
Voting will be mailed to about 6,000 workers associated with its Bessemer, Alabama facility on Feb. 8. In its petition, Amazon said the board’s decision was flawed in part because it had not properly defined an outbreak, among other objections.
Workers request representation from the retail, wholesale and department store union. The majority of votes should choose unionization to obtain representation. Amazon workers by the hour had never trained or joined unions in the United States
A spokeswoman for the retail, wholesale and department store union declined to comment. Amazon declined to comment on its appeal, but said it believes the best approach for an election would be to make it in person, saying it “provided the NLRB with a secure, confidential and convenient proposal for associates would vote in situ, in the best interests of all parties: associated convenience, fidelity of the vote and punctuality of the counting of votes “.