Amazon. com Inc. Alabama warehouse workers are voting on whether to unionize this month. Whatever the outcome, the e-commerce giant is facing pressure from staff around the world to make changes to its working conditions.
So far, the actions stop outside of a formal union impulse, but each involves hundreds of employees and shows how working conditions in Amazon warehouses are increasingly in the spotlight. President Biden and other dignitaries weighed in on the vote in Bessemer, Alabama, among employees at the warehouse. Senator Bernie Sanders, a frequent critic of Amazon, is scheduled to travel to Alabama on Friday to meet with Amazon workers, a spokesman said. Thousands of votes have already been cast in the mail-order elections, which end on March 29.
None of Amazon’s 800,000 American employees are unionized. A vote to form a union in Alabama would give workers more power to negotiate with the company on issues such as wages and benefits.
Elsewhere, hourly Amazon employees collect petition signatures, discuss potential strikes and consult with unions on possible claims. The groups are trying to change the company’s policies regarding the rate at which they have to prepare packages, as well as break time and change schedule – all factors that can make Amazon a physically demanding job, workers say. Such issues have come to the fore for many employees amid the expansion of Amazon and the pressure to speed up delivery times.
“It would be a victory for us and a boost for others,” Jennifer Bates, a Bessemer worker-organizer, said in an interview. “It would be a fire trigger.”