One last oneAmazon’s ditch attempt to delay the vote on unionization at one of its largest depots failed, paving the way for the first serious effort to organize workers at the technology giant in a failed attempt in Delaware in 2014.
On Friday, the National Council for Labor Relations said nearly 6,000 workers at the company’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. could use email voting to determine if the hub will join Union of retail, wholesale and department stores (RWDSU). In so doing, the agency rejected Amazon’s previous objections to the union impulse.
Initially workers filed for law to a vote on unionization in November last year and the NLRB thereafter granted them this right. However, Amazon quickly sought to discourage and delay this scenario, filing an appeal in January, this called into question the office’s initial decision. The technology giant also demanded that, instead of voting by mail, workers participate in a vote on the spot, in person, despite the health risks associated with the pandemic.
However, in its ruling on Friday, the NLRB said the petition to vote on unionization “does not raise substantial issues justifying the review” and could continue. The agency also overturned Amazon’s attempt to force a vote in person. Following the decision, Bessemer workers will be able to start voting on the initiative next Monday, February 8, and will continue until March 29.
G / O Media may receive a commission
Amazon is struggling with labor organization attempts took place all over the country– and his tactics of discouraging and discouraging such efforts were frequent it involved draconian surveillance of activists and employees, inclusive hiring Pinkterton detectives, among other things.
Against this background, Bessemer has emerged as a key point of pressure in the technology giant’s labor dispute management conflicts. Local activism helped galvanize the pressure for extended protections, although the company tried to discourage workers. This one it was recently reported that Bessemer’s employees were drawn to “propaganda” sessions in which managers try to “sow doubts about the impulse to unionize.” Perhaps this is not surprising, given that there is a lot of riding in this future vote. As Bloomberg reports:
A defeat of the union would damage the reputation of the labor movement, which has failed countless times in organizing workers at the second largest private employer in America, after Walmart. A union victory, on the other hand, would provide a tactical roadmap for the hundreds of thousands of people struggling in Amazon’s facilities.
“Once again Amazon workers have won another fight in their effort to win a union voice,” said Chelsea Connor, RWDSU’s communications director, following the NLRB’s decision. “Amazon’s blatant ignorance of the health and safety of its workforce has been demonstrated once again by its insistence on personal elections in the midst of the pandemic. Today’s decision proves that it took a long time for Amazon to respect its own employees; and allow them to cast their votes without intimidation and interference. ”
When he was contacted by email on Friday, the Amazon spokesman Heather Knox said the company was “disappointed” by the NLRB’s decision and said postal voting would reduce turnout: “Our goal is for as many of our employees as possible to vote and we are disappointed with the NLRB’s decision to provide the most fair and more efficiently formed to get maximum employee participation, ”Knox said in a statement. She also said that postal voting would be less effective than what Amazon had planned as an alternative: “safe electoral process on the spot validated by covid-19 experts who would have empowered our associates to vote on their way to, during, and from their already scheduled exchanges. ”
Somehow you vote as you hurry back and forth between the company-designated tasks – at a possible “super-widespread event“No less – it doesn’t seem as effective as voting from the comfort of your own home. Indeed, rather than seeing this as an attempt to increase voters, some might even interpret it as a way of discouraging.