In a major victory over Amazon’s online retail, workers at an Amazon compliance center in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against forming a union, according to an unofficial balance sheet.
In a major victory over Amazon’s online retail, workers at an Amazon compliance center in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against forming a union.
According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 1,798 votes against the unionization were cast and 738 votes in favor were cast.
The vote in Bessemer, Alabama, has attracted national and international attention and marked the first time since 2014 that workers at the online retail giant have tried to unionize in the United States.
Amazon is the second largest private entrepreneur in the United States and has been harshly criticized in recent years for the treatment it has received from warehouse workers both in the U.S. and abroad.
Joshua Freeman, professor emeritus of labor history at Queens College at New York City University, said the union defeat could have a chilling effect on other potential efforts to organize warehouse workers.
“It was a pretty big defeat, losing more than 2 to 1. That should leave many union supporters unhappy,” Freeman told Al Jazeera. “Most unions don’t go to union elections unless they have a base. big enough to think they are in the park. And many ideas were changed or the union misunderstood the situation when they ran in an election.
Of the approximately 5,800 ballots mailed in early February, a total of 3,215 were returned to the NLRB regional office in Atlanta.
Prior to the public count, which began Thursday, each vote was reviewed for the first time by representatives of Amazon and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
According to the Reuters news agency, about 500 of these companies were initially challenged on various issues, including suspected manipulation and voter eligibility.
RWDSU said Friday in a press release challenging the results of the vote with the NLRB, claiming that Amazon illegally interfered, “with the protected right of employees to participate in union activities.”
“We demand a thorough investigation into Amazon’s behavior in corrupting these elections,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement.
Amazon rejected claims it has acted illegally, and wrote in a press release Friday: “It’s easy to predict that the union will say Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true.”