Amazon workers could make a breakthrough at a company that did everything it could to break the organized hand. Nearly 6,000 employees in Bessemer, Alabama, the fulfillment center will soon be able vote if union is needed; ballot papers must be sent by 29 March, and the National Committee for Labor Relations will count them the next day.
However, someone is not satisfied with the organizing efforts.
A person or entity made a raw anti-union website with cartoons, Doitwithoutdues.com. “HEY BHM1 DOERS, why pay dues of almost $ 500?”, It is shown, in front of a bright photo of a warehouse worker giving a thumb. (BHM1 is the name of the Bessemer repository.) “We provide you * with high salaries, medical care, vision and dental benefits, as well as a safety committee and an appeal process. There are SO MANY things you can do for your career and your family without paying dues. ”
Amid the merry decorations – an Amazon package with hearts and a GIF of a corgi spinning a disk – the site deceptively claims that workers will be locked in payment of dues. (This is not true: Nobody is forced to become a member of the contributing union, even if workers vote for unionization.) The site provides a portal for workers to return the cards they have signed to apply for elections to the National Council for Labor Relations.
In the footer, the site displays an Amazon logo. In an email, an Amazon spokesperson did not confirm or deny that the site is affiliated with the company.
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BHM1 deposit open at the beginning of the pandemic, when Amazon continued a hiring spree. The pandemic also correlated with a national wave of workers’ organizations, including protests unsafe conditions and fair salary; meanwhile, increased public control plus increased demand he gave them a little more leverage. Amazon workers have been fighting for the organization for years, and Amazon has met with anti-union activists propaganda and surveillance, as well as dismissal. (Although it’s illegal to fire a worker for the organization, Amazon workers in Alabama may be dismissed at any time for any reason without union.)
If workers vote for unionization, they will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store (RWDSU). RWDSU declined to comment, but previously agreed Hire Whole Foods‘attempt to unionize and represented a warehouse worker from Staten Island who he was fired after speaking for better working conditions.
In a statement sent to Gizmodo, Amazon did not say it was anti-union per se, but that “we do not believe that RDWSU represents the majority of the opinions of our employees.” It’s not clear where RDWSU’s “views” differ from those of employees, but Amazon said it offers “some of the best jobs available wherever we work.”
This may still be true, but workers may also want things like job stability and a grievance procedure so that they don’t have to choose amazing jobs other than things like going to the bathroom. Workers could also negotiate for the payment of risks, which the company granted and then revoked a few months after the pandemic. (In October, before the worst winter increase, said the company that almost 20,000 workers had contracted covid-19.) Adding to the years of reports of brutally long changes under the surveillance, revealed recent reports overwhelming rates of injuries in the company’s warehouses.
Amazon, New York Times he stressed, did not get so close to a union since 2014, when the vast majority of the 27 technical workers voted against unionization. A representative of the International Association of Aerospace Machinists and Workers said at the time that the workers “faced intense pressure from anti-union managers and consultants.”