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Amazon on Friday lost the effort to postpone a closely watched union vote in a large warehouse in Alabama, allowing 6,000 workers to decide on the company’s first major union effort in 2014.
The decision of the National Labor Relations Committee involved Amazon’s appeal last month to block the postal vote of workers at the Bessemer warehouse, Alabama, on joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union.
Specifically, the company requested NLRB to review aspects of its previous decision. Amazon also insisted on in-person elections, citing flaws in the agency’s definition of what constitutes a coronavirus outbreak.
In its latest ruling, NLRB said Amazon’s appeal did not raise “any substantial issues to justify the review”.
“The employer’s proposal to remain in the scrutiny of the election is also rejected as questionable,” the council said.
By rejecting the Amazon call, NLRB will allow Amazon warehouse workers to start voting by mail starting Monday. Ballot papers must be received by the NLRB regional office by March 29, and counting will begin the next day.
The last major unionization effort at Amazon was in 2014, when repair technicians at a warehouse in Delaware failed to get enough votes to join a union. Since then, however, protests over Prime Day, the coronavirus pandemic and other events have laid the groundwork for new organizing efforts in parts of its workforce across the country.
The Alabama unionization effort emerged as a protracted labor struggle at Amazon, with the company hiring the same law firm it used to attend negotiations during the Delaware union.
Amazon also created a website to advertise its position in the Alabama depository union, urging workers to “do it tax-free,” referring to the cost of joining a union.
The company has intensified communications with workers in recent weeks at the BHM1 Bessemer warehouse about the union. Amazon arranged mandatory appointments, distributed flyers throughout the unit, and sent text messages at that time.
Union President Stuart Applebaum announced the NLRB’s decision as a victory in the Amazon workers’ struggle to organize and criticized the company’s pressure to hold in-person elections as a threat to the health and safety of pandemic workers.
“Once again, Amazon workers have won another battle in their effort to win a union voice,” Applebaum said in a statement. “Today’s decision proves that it took a long time for Amazon to start respecting its own employees; and allowing them to cast their votes without intimidation and interference.”
Amazon representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.