Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, handed the online retail giant a landslide victory when they voted against forming a union and cutting a path that labor activists hoped would lead to similar efforts across the company. not only.
After months of aggressive campaigns on both sides, 1,798 warehouse workers eventually rejected the union, while 738 voted in favor of it, according to the National Labor Relations Committee, which oversees the process.
Of the 3,117 votes cast, 76 were annulled for incorrect completion and 505 were challenged by either Amazon or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which led the organizing efforts in Bessemer. But the NLRB said the contested votes were not enough to influence the outcome. About 53% of the nearly 6,000 workers voted.
The union said it would object to the NLRB, accusing the company of illegally interfering with the union’s vote. He will request a hearing with the labor council to determine whether the results “should be annulled” after accusing Amazon of spreading misinformation about the unionization effort at meetings workers were required to attend.
“Amazon has left no stone unturned in its efforts to ignite its own employees. We will not leave Amazon’s lies, deception and illegal activities unchallenged, “said Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU.
Amazon said in a statement that it did not intimidate employees.
“Our employees have heard far more anti-Amazon messages from the union, from policy makers and from the media than they have heard from us,” the company said. “And Amazon didn’t win – our employees chose to vote against joining a union.”
The union momentum was the biggest in Amazon’s 26-year history and was the second time an organizational effort by the company has reached a vote. But Bessemer has always been seen as a long-term blow, as he has put the country’s second-largest employer against warehouse workers in a state with laws that do not favor unions. Alabama is one of 27 states with the “right to work” in which workers do not have to pay dues to the unions that represent them.
The fact that the Bessemer labor movement has come this far was unexpected. Amazon has an undefeated record of eliminating union efforts before it can spread. And at a time when the economy is still struggling to recover and companies have cut jobs, it is one of the few jobs still employed during the pandemic, adding 500,000 workers last year alone.
But the pandemic also revealed inequities in the workforce, with many forced to report for work even as the coronavirus broke out, leading to health and safety concerns. Organizational efforts in Bessemer coincided with protests across the country following the killing of police by George Floyd, raising awareness of racial injustice and further fueling frustration over how warehouse workers – over 80% who are black – are treated, with 10 days of packing and loading the boxes and only two breaks of 30 minutes.
In a press conference held by Amazon, four workers from the Bessemer warehouse said that the talk about ill-treatment by the company is the opinion of some workers, not all.
“We are sorry that their experience was not the same as ours,” said Will Stokes, one of the warehouse workers who voted against the union.
The organizing effort inside the Bessemer warehouse began last summer, when a group of workers approached RWDSU about forming a union. The movement has gained momentum since then, attracting the attention of professional athletes, Hollywood stars and high-profile elected officials, including President Joe Biden.
During the voting process, workers were inundated with messages from Amazon and the union. Amazon hung anti-union signs all over the warehouse and held mandatory meetings to convince workers why the union was a bad idea. He also claimed that he had already offered more than twice the minimum wage in Alabama plus benefits without paying union dues.
Meanwhile, union organizers were standing in front of the warehouse gates, trying to talk to people who lead and leave work. The volunteers also called all 6,000 workers, promising that a union would lead to better working conditions, better pay and more respect.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a progressive icon who traveled to Alabama for a pro-union rally last month, said he was “disappointed but not surprised by the vote.”
“It is extraordinarily courageous for workers to take on one of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world, a company that has spent unlimited amounts of money to beat the organizing effort,” he said in a statement.
Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia University Business School, says Amazon’s deposits are “juicy targets of opportunity” for unions because they can be organized one at a time. The company has over 950,000 full-time and part-time employees in the United States and nearly 1.3 million worldwide. Moreover, the status of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest man in the world makes it easy to denigrate, especially when his company enjoyed record profits last year, which rose 84% to $ 21 billion.
Cohen, who used to be executive director at Sears Canada, called retail a “tough and tough” industry, adding that Bezos has built a culture based on high performance, with performance and productivity expectations at every level. the store. If it’s not your concert, it doesn’t work for them. ”
The National Retail Federation, which represents Walmart, Target and other major retailers, sounded relieved after the Bessemer vote.
“Trade union representation is a choice for workers, but many clearly prefer opportunities in a competitive market that offers strong wages and benefits over the anonymity of a collective bargaining agreement,” said David French, the federation’s spokesman.
Trade unions have been losing ground nationally for decades since their heyday in World War II. In 1970, nearly a third of the American workforce belonged to a union. In 2020, this figure was 10.8%, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private sector workers now make up less than half of the country’s 14.3 million trade unions.
Richard Bensinger, former director of organization for the AFL-CIO and United Automobile Workers, noted the large number of workers who did not vote in Bessemer: “For me, this is all about paralysis, fear. They do not want to support the company, but they are afraid to support the union. ”
Despite the union defeat, Lynne Vincent, a professor at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management, believes the momentum of the labor movement will continue to grow, with more Amazon workers considering unionization and the possibility of changing labor laws to give employers less advantage.
“I don’t think Amazon can breathe comfortably,” she said.
Emmit Ashford, an Amazon pro-union worker from Bessemer, who spoke at a press conference held by the retail union, said he would not give up.
“This is just a spark that started the fire,” Ashford said. “We will continue to fight. This experience connected us. Our time will come again and next time we will win. ”
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Follow Joseph Pisani on Twitter: @ josephpisani