Amazon faces a familiar opponent in the Alabama Union election

The commercial giant is facing a well-known opponent: the Retail Union, Wholesale and Department Store, or RWDSU, which, together with local organizers, is helping to lead the pro-union campaign. The union has helped organize thousands of poultry workers in Alabama, a labor-intensive state, and has become a frequent antagonist of Amazon in recent years. RWDSU fought against the company’s plans for a second headquarters in New York at the end of 2018 and supported workers’ protests at some warehouses during the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, the current effort has been more successful than other attempts to organize Amazon workers, according to labor experts. They note that a successful push of the warehouse could stimulate similar actions at Amazon’s more than 800 US facilities

“Amazon has seen its demand grow” during the pandemic, said Arthur Wheaton, director of Western NY Labor and Environmental Programs for the Corner University Worker Institute. The company’s continued growth will bring increased control over how it pays and treats its employees, he said.

The effort still faces formidable obstacles. Amazon tried to postpone the scheduled start of elections on February 8 and appealed the decision of the National Labor Relations Committee to allow voting by mail. Although the vote is likely to continue as scheduled, a union decision could lead to years of negotiations on the first contract, labor experts say.

The company is holding frequent meetings at the 855,000-square-meter unit about 15 miles southwest of Birmingham to counter the union’s efforts, employees say. He also hired a law firm to counter organizational efforts and set up a website that says employees already receive benefits and salaries that a union would bargain for and should vote no to avoid membership costs.

An Amazon spokeswoman said the company “does not believe that RWDSU represents the majority of our employees’ opinions.” Our employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs available wherever we work and we encourage anyone to compare our total compensation package, health benefits and workplace environment with any other job company similar. ”

If workers vote in favor of the union, Alabama’s “right to work” rules mean that employees are not automatically part of the union. Workers would not be required to join a union or pay dues, which could make it more difficult to extend membership. Some workers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they did not support it because they did not believe union representation would substantially improve their conditions.

Amazon has opposed several previous unionization efforts. An effort made by RWDSU in 2018 to organize employees on the Whole Foods market owned by Amazon failed to gain traction. About four years earlier, a small number of maintenance and repair technicians voted in favor of a union attempt at a unit in Middletown, Del.

To support their argument this time, local organizers gathered near the town of Amazon Bessemer, Alabama, with red signs and clothing, talking to employees at a traffic light and handing out flyers. “Don’t let Amazon scare you!” read it.

Organizers cannot enter the warehouse, and the union has recently received contact information for plant workers, according to Joshua Brewer, an organizer of the union’s Mid-South Council.

The union relied on local connections in Bessemer, disseminating information through workers’ family members and relying on the support of local unions. Because many of Amazon’s warehouse employees are black and some have been involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, the union has addressed issues related to racial empowerment, Mr Brewer said.

“He comes here and is present not for an event or for a day, but creates a presence outside the facility that says we are here and we are not leaving,” he said. “They see us every day.”

A group of employees at the Bessemer plant, which opened last spring, first contacted the union last summer. The workers were frustrated by what they say are the exhausting demands of Amazon’s workload and the company’s monitoring of employees, according to the union.

Amazon uses cameras and an internal system that tracks the movements and productivity of workers up to the second, a problem that has been the concern of employees for years. Some workers criticized the use of techniques during the pandemic, as they struggled to fill a drastic increase in orders, and felt that their essential work should have earned them an improvement from such methods.

RWDSU representatives; union members from nearby warehouses, poultry plants and nursing homes; and Amazon workers began meeting in restaurants and hotels and began their information campaign in October.

Organizers have collected thousands of signatures from employees showing support for the election. In December, the Labor Council decided to allow the elections to move forward and subsequently set the voting period from February to March.

RWDSU has been successful in the southern states, especially in the poultry industry. The union said it represented about 15,000 workers in the southern poultry sector, including Alabama. At the beginning of the pandemic, it reported fatal outbreaks of Covid-19 in poultry facilities, while urging employers to improve working conditions. Major poultry companies have implemented temperature checks, increased cleaning and issued protective equipment, among other measures.

Founded in the late 1930s, RWDSU now represents thousands of employees in retail chains that include Macy’s Inc.

and Bloomingdale’s, as well as warehouse and service workers.

The union was among a group of critics at the center of a fierce reaction when Amazon announced plans to locate part of a second headquarters in New York at the end of 2018.

Amazon selected the city as part of its so-called “HQ2” development at a time when RWDSU was gathering support for workers to unionize at a Staten Island facility, an effort that eventually disappeared. The union opposed the nearly $ 3 billion in government incentives Amazon received for creating 25,000 jobs in the city.

The union was involved in a last-minute meeting with company directors organized by Governor Andrew Cuomo to save the planned expansion. During the meeting, executives and labor leaders provisionally agreed to continue discussions related to the unionization effort, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Amazon has finally given up on its expansion plans in New York, but the company recently announced plans to hire thousands of new employees in various major US cities, including New York.

“I saw that they were big, big and strong, but they were also arrogant,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said in an interview. “‘You can take Amazon’ was an important lesson from HQ2.”

Write to Sebastian Herrera la [email protected]