A worker is loading customer orders into a tractor trailer waiting in the Amazon’s million-square-foot distribution warehouse that opened last fall in Fall River, MA, on March 23, 2017.
John Tlumacki | Boston Globe | Getty Images
Amazon and a retail union looking to represent some of the company’s Alabama warehouse workers reached an agreement on Tuesday on the size of a potential bargaining unit, bringing the union one step closer to the election.
If successful, the union drive in Alabama would establish the first union representation ever in an American unit.
The unions have a stronger foothold among Amazon’s European workforce, but the company has largely failed to thwart US organizing efforts. However, in recent years, protests over Prime Day and other events, as well as the coronavirus pandemic, have alluded to increased organizing efforts across the country. Amazon has not faced a substantial union vote since 2014, when repair technicians at a warehouse in Delaware failed to get enough votes to form a union.
The deal on Tuesday ended a three-day hearing before the National Labor Relations Committee, in which lawyers for Amazon and the Retail Union, Wholesale and Department Store removed details about which employees should be allowed to vote on elections.
Last month, workers at the Amazon facility in Bessemer, Alabama, notified NLRB of their plans to hold a vote to be represented by RWDSU. In its petition, the union said the bargaining unit would cover 1,500 full-time and part-time workers at the facility.
The NLRB said last week that it had found “sufficient presentation” for a vote. Amazon said additional workers should be allowed to vote, arguing that the facility has 5,700 employees.
On Tuesday, Amazon and the union reached a consensus to include a wider range of employees in the proposed bargaining unit, including seasonal employees brought in to meet holiday demand, along with other positions on on-site health care, training and safety, among others. fields. It means thousands of additional employees will be eligible to run in the election.
It is now up to the council to decide when and how the union vote will take place. The Council is expected to issue a decision leading up to the elections in early to mid-January, which means that a vote will probably not take place until later that month.
Amazon and the union are still at odds over the place of the election
Amazon and the union disagree on how the election should be organized by mail or in person at the Bessemer facility, known as BHM1.
At Tuesday’s hearing, an NLRB official pointed out that ballot papers had been used in all 30 cases since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The Board also expressed concern that in order to conduct an in-person election, additional NLRB Board officers would be required to travel to Jefferson County, which has a high Covid-positive rate. .
Harry Johnson, a lawyer representing Amazon, argued that the vote should take place at the Bessemer unit and stressed the extensive efforts of the unit’s sanitation company. Johnson also suggested that Amazon could rent a hotel for NLRB staff to stay during the election.
Amazon’s in-person election has drawn a rebuke from Richard Rouco, a union lawyer, who said: “I know Amazon thinks it has special rules or that it can create a bubble on its own or rent hotels or it can do a lot of other things to contain the virus, but that’s not the standard. ”
In November, the NLRB launched a set of guidelines on how to conduct elections during the pandemic, which suggests that postal voting is preferred when the 14-day positivity rate in the county where the facility is located is 5% or higher. An NLRB official at the meeting said the positivity rate in Jefferson County is over 14%.