In a major victory for the online retail sale of the Amazon behemoth, workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against forming a union, according to an unofficial number of ballots.
In a major victory for the online retail sale of the Amazon behemoth, workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against forming a union.
According to the National Committee for Labor Relations (NLRB), 1,798 votes against the unionization were cast, and 738 were in favor.
The vote in Bessemer, Alabama, attracted national and international attention and marked the first time since 2014, when workers at the online giant tried to unite in the United States.
Amazon is the second largest private employer in the US and has been heavily criticized in recent years for the treatment of warehouse workers both in the US and abroad.
Joshua Freeman, professor emeritus of work history at Queens College at City University in New York, said the union defeat could have a terrible effect on other potential efforts to organize warehouse workers.
“It was a big defeat, losing more than 2 to 1. This should leave many union supporters unhappy,” Freeman told Al Jazeera. “Most unions do not go to union elections unless they have a large enough base to believe they are in the stadium. And either a lot of minds have changed, or the union has misunderstood the situation when they ran in the elections. ”
Of the approximately 5,800 ballots that were mailed in early February, a total of 3,215 were returned to the NLRB regional office in Atlanta.
Prior to the public count, which began on Thursday, each ballot was reviewed for the first time by representatives of Amazon and the Union of Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores (RWDSU).
According to Reuters, about 500 of them were initially challenged on a number of issues, including suspected counterfeiting and voter eligibility.
RWDSU said in a press release on Friday that it disputes the results of the vote with NLRB, claiming that Amazon intervened illegally, “with the protected right of employees to engage in union activity.”
“We call for a comprehensive investigation into Amazon’s behavior in the corruption of these elections,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement.
Amazon denied allegations that it acted illegally, writing in a press release on Friday: “It is easy to predict that the union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but this is not true.”