Joe Biden actually approved continuous unionization efforts at an Amazon unit in Alabama and warned the e-commerce giant that its efforts to stop the vehicle must involve “no intimidation, no coercion, no threat, no anti-union propaganda.”
Amazon workers have long complained about everything exhausting hours and quotas in exchange for reduced compensation at amazing levels of injuries at the warehouse, dangerous conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, dystopian supervision at work, driver’s advice, and retaliation treatment of particularly sincere employees. At the same time, Amazon resisted the efforts of the work organizers to convince almost 6,000 employees at a distribution center in the majority city – Bessemer, Alabama, black, to vote in favor of joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union, as well as organizing efforts in general – using techniques common in corporate America, but which are carried out with zeal especially of e-commerce titanium.
Amazon bombed workers with anti-union propaganda, sent them pro-management messages, has posted job postings for experts in breaking the unionand forced them to attend mandatory meetings. In Alabama, Amazon executives sought to have the position of the National Committee for Labor Relationsvoted for the union, as well as tried to force the vote to happen personally during the coronavirus pandemic. Work organizers said the media that the workers at the unit were captive auditors at the mandatory anti-union meetings and that the managers tried to intimidate the workers who challenged the information given in those photo sessions their work badges. However, the election is taking place in the conditions of Amazon tried to prevent, made by the ballot papers by mail which will be counted on March 30. The stakes are high: if workers successfully form the first Amazon union in Alabama, it is possible to launch a wave of union campaigns at other jobs. A recent national survey shared with Gizmodo showed that the vast majority of the hundreds of Amazon drivers surveyed supported the formation of their own unions.
In a video message posted on Twitter about the “Alabama workers” on Sunday, Biden reiterated his support for the unions and said he would keep his “promise” to support the organization’s efforts. He did not mention Amazon by name, although there was no doubt that the employer called.
“You should all remember that the National Labor Relations Act not only said that unions are allowed to exist, but said that we should encourage unions,” Biden said. “Let me be very clear: it is not up to me to decide whether someone should join a union. But let me be even clearer: no employer has to decide that. ”
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“The choice to join a union is up to the workers – period. Point,Biden continued. “Today and for the next few days and weeks, workers in Alabama and across America are voting on whether to organize a union at work. This is of vital importance, an extremely important choice, because America is facing a deadly pandemic, economic crisis and racial reckoning – which reveals the profound differences that still exist in our country. “
“And there should be no intimidation, coercion, threats, anti-union propaganda,” Biden concluded. “No supervisor should confront employees about their union preferences … Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees this choice. And it’s your right, not an employer’s, it’s your right. No employer can take this immediately. ”
The New York Times wrote it is “unusual” for presidents to look at certain labor disputes (a feeling that can only go in one direction, given last administration nemilos of hostile position towards the labor movement and attempts to break the federal union). The Washington Post wrote that Biden’s rejection is “striking” because Amazon’s senior vice president of global affairs, weeping corporate spokesman Jay Carney was a White House press secretary under Barack Obama and Biden. No doubt Carney was brought under the expectation that his tenure in the executive branch could help the company grease the wheels of D.C.
Faiz Shakir, former assistant to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is the founder of More Perfect Union, one of many labor advocacy groups which prompted Biden to speak out in favor of the Alabama union effort. Shakir told the Post that Biden’s statement was the biggest show of support for unionization that came from the White House in many years.
“I did not have this aggressive and positive statement from a statement by a president of the United States on behalf of workers for decades,” Shakir said. “It is monumental that you have a president who sends a message to workers across the country that if you take the courageous step to start unionizing, you will have allies in the administration, the NLRB and the Department of Labor. It means a lot.”
“It’s almost unprecedented in American history,” said Erik Loomis, a labor historian at the University of Rhode Island. “We have the feeling that the previous presidents in the middle of the twentieth century were obviously pro-unionists, but that was not the case. Even [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] he never really came out and told the workers directly to support a union.
While Biden’s support for Amazon’s effort is a major development, eliminating the damage from the Trump era to the labor movement and institutions like the NLRB will not happen on a chronology anywhere nearly overnight. The NLRB was controlled by the so-called Trumps who were they eagerly used their power launch radical attacks on workers’ rights, their ability to organize and the rules of employer liability.
The new interim general counsel of the Biden administration at NLRB, Peter Sung’s ear, overturned numerous directives from the Trump era. But Biden did still to act on major labor law reforms as well as the proposed Law on the Protection of the Right to Organize, which would add teeth to the NLRB’s regulatory authority, as well as prevent employers from forcing unions to negotiate deadlocks and implement pro-management contracts.