Rally organized by the Anti-Racism Workers Assembly in support of Amazon workers at the Bessemer, Alabama warehouse, union rights in Union Square through the Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market.
Lev Radin | LightRocket | Getty Images
A group of Democratic members of Congress traveled Friday to an Amazon warehouse in Alabama to show support for workers who are in the midst of a closely guarded union vote.
Lawmakers who visited the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama included representatives Andy Levin of Michigan, Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri, Terri Sewell of Alabama, and Nikema Williams of Georgia. Lawmakers met with a number of workers at the facility, known as BHM1, before heading to the warehouse.
“I want Amazon workers across the country to pay attention because you should do the same in your workplace,” Bowman said Friday at a news conference in the RWDSU Mid-South Council union room in Birmingham, Alabama. “And we don’t stop with Amazon. This is Lyft, this is Uber, this is Walmart, this is Tesla: all the companies in this country that continue to be mistreated and offer terrible working conditions to the workers, we are by your side.”
At the press conference, Bowman said the union campaign in Alabama demonstrates the need to establish better worker protections on Amazon and other U.S. companies. He described the work environment on Amazon as a “culture of abuse” and surveillance.
“If workers stay offline, they get some kind of merit and if they accumulate enough scope, they are fired from their jobs,” Bowman said. “Do we deal with machines or widgets or do we deal with humans?”
Earlier this month, nearly 6,000 workers at the Bessmer facility began voting by email to join the Wholesale and Retail Store Union, and began the first major syndication effort in the UK. company since 2014. Last November, workers at the Alabama facility notified the NLRB of its plans to hold a vote on whether it would be represented by the RWDSU.
The show of support from lawmakers comes just days after President Joe Biden on Sunday expressed solidarity with Amazon workers trying to unionize the Bessemer facility by telling them to “make your voice heard.” Biden did not name Amazon specifically, but referred to “Alabama workers.”
Several workers at the Amazon Bessemer facility also attended the briefing. Kevin Jackson, a BHM1 employee, said the union campaign was to ensure Amazon workers had “a place at the table like everyone else.”
“We’re here to say we won’t be intimidated by anyone trying to say they’ll fire us, because of what we want,” Jackson said.
Amazon worker Kevin Jackson talks about the stairs at RWDSU’s South Headquarters before a tour by a Congressional delegation to a nearby Amazon plant to show their support for workers who will vote if unionized , in Birmingham, Alabama, March 5, 2021.
Dustin Chambers Reuters
Amazon has previously said it respects the right of workers to join a union, but also that its workers do not need a union between themselves and the company. Amazon has made clear its position on the union campaign to workers at Bessemer’s facilities, by holding mandatory meetings where the anti-union case was declared and creating a website urging workers to “do it without quotes “.
In a statement, Amazon spokeswoman Heather Knox encouraged lawmakers to visit one of the company’s compliance centers to observe working conditions there.
“We expect these members of Congress to spend that same amount of energy raising the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour, as Amazon did for all of our employees in 2018,” Knox said in a statement. “We are proud to pay more than double the federal minimum wage, while offering comprehensive benefits, free rest and short- and long-term professional growth, all in a safe, modern work environment.”