A number of Amazon workers in Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland, Denver and Southern California seek union, encouraged by their Alabama co-workers high profile union campaign, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Amazon workers have been struggling to organize for years citing groundbreaking workloads, unsafe conditions in the midst of the covid-19 global pandemic, dystopian workplace surveillance, and the story of Amazon flagrant reprisals against those who speak out against this unfair treatment. Now, almost 6,000 employees at an Amazon distribution center in the mostly black city of Bessemer, Alabama, will have to vote this month if it joins the Union of Retailers, Wholesalers and Department Stores.
In an interview with Bloomberg, RWDSU said 1,000 Amazon workers across the country have already tried to explore their options for potential unions at their own facilities.
“People understand that this is something much bigger than Alabama and even much bigger than Amazon,” RWDSU Stuart Appelbaum said at the outset. “It’s really about the future of work and how workers will be treated.”
Several Amazon workers with whom Bloomberg spoke began discussing unionization with their co-workers after seeing the success of the Alabama campaign. An employee of a warehouse in Denver, Colorado, said he set up an online chat room so co-workers could discuss the organization. Another warehouse worker in New Orleans, Louisiana, said he drove five hours to Bessemer last month to participate in a pro-union rally. He added that the hard work of all his co-workers in Alabama could become a turning point for reform if other Amazon warehouse employees follow suit.
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“If the most powerful company in the world can unionize in an anti-union state like Alabama, it gives hope to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, who are trying to do the same,” he said at the outset. “We just have to support the fight wherever it is, because the fight will come to us.”
However, many workers fear retaliation given those of Amazon strict efforts to curb the union along the years. The company conducted an extensive anti-union campaign in Alabama, driving the ads Twitch, owned by Amazon, Twitter and other social networking platforms, sending text messages to workers with pro-management and running messages hiring ads for union destruction experts. President Joe Biden it even influenced Amazon’s meddling before the Alabama vote, warning the e-commerce giant that its efforts to curb the union must involve “no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda.” .
A Pennsylvania warehouse worker told Bloomberg that with all of this in mind, in addition to Amazon’s already exhausting workloads, it has been difficult to get co-workers fired enough even to start union talks.
“People are just trying to work and go home,” he said in an interview with the outlet. “Amazon makes you very tired, worn out both physically and mentally, but the benefits are good.”
Alabama’s election is held through email voting to be counted on March 30, after which Amazon could see a flood of union campaigns in its other stores and beyond. A recent national survey shared with Gizmodo he surveyed hundreds of Amazon drivers based in the United States and Canada and found that most of them supported syndication.
In his interview with Bloomberg, Appelbaum said that even if Amazon workers in Alabama finally choose not to unionize, “this campaign will cause an explosion in the organization across the country.”