Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, have voted resoundingly against unionisation, a major blow to the US labour movement and its hopes of gaining a foothold within the ecommerce giant.
The campaign to create the first Amazon union in the US drew global attention, and support from the highest political office, but ultimately failed to make its impact where it really mattered: the ballot box.
About 55 per cent of the facility’s almost 6,000 workers cast a ballot, through the post due to pandemic restrictions. In a count conducted over a video conference — to an audience of more than 200 lawyers, observers and journalists — the “no” vote secured 1,798 ballots to the union’s 738.
Despite the heavy defeat, union representatives put on a brave face, arguing the vote itself was a historic achievement, the first time an entire facility in Amazon’s home country has been given the choice.
The Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union said it will appeal against the result, citing what it said were numerous and egregious efforts to illegally influence the vote.
“Amazon knew full well that unless they did everything they possibly could, even illegal activity, their workers would have continued supporting the union,” said Stuart Appelbaum, RWDSU president.
In a statement, Amazon thanked its employees. “It’s easy to predict the union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true,” the company said in a blog post published on Friday.
“Our employees heard far more anti-Amazon messages from the union, policymakers and media outlets than they heard from us. And Amazon didn’t win — our employees made the choice to vote against joining a union.”
However it is characterised, the company’s victory continues an unbeaten run in fending off unionisation efforts in the US. The Bessemer plant was the first US facility to reach the stage of holding a formal, sanctioned vote, having garnered enough indications of support late last year.
Despite the union’s loss, the battle could still drag out for many months. The appeal will first be heard by a local office of the National Labor Relations Board and could ultimately end up being decided by the agency’s politically-appointed board members in Washington, said John Logan, a professor of labour and employment studies at San Francisco State University.
“It’s conceivable that by the time it got to the full NLRB board, it could have a Democratic majority,” Logan said. The term of William Emanuel, a Republican appointee, is due to end in August.
In March President Joe Biden signalled strong support for the workers, urging Amazon to stand aside to allow workers to make a “free and fair choice”. Logan described the comments as the “most pro-union statement ever made by a sitting president”.
The Biden administration is backing the Protecting the Right To Organize Act, which seeks to make illegal many of the tactics adopted by Amazon during the campaign. The PRO Act passed a vote in the House of Representatives earlier this year.
“America’s workers will not have consistent access to free, fair and safe union elections until we strengthen our nation’s labour laws,” Virginia congressman Bobby Scott, chair of the House committee on education and labour, said following the Amazon vote.
“We cannot continue allowing employers to interfere with workers’ decision whether or not to form a union. The Senate must pass the PRO Act.”
The campaign had also drawn support from the Black Lives Matter movement, and was being closely watched by other prominent civil rights figures. The Bessemer plant’s workforce is more than 75 per cent African-American.
“Workers felt they had no voice and didn’t know how to speak out,” said Marc Bayard, director of the Black Worker Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. “These workers have showed a pathway to success.”
The RWDSU’s appeal will focus on the installation of a mailbox in the parking lot of the facility, within sight of security cameras, a move representatives said was designed to intimidate employees as they dropped off their envelopes.
Emails obtained by the RWDSU appeared to show Amazon had put pressure on the US Postal Service to install the box before voting began. It has since been removed.
Amazon previously said it was “a simple, secure and completely optional way to make it easy for employees to vote, no more and no less”.
Other complaints from the union include a campaign of “captive audience” meetings, during which Amazon warned employees against unionisation, as well as the displaying of anti-union posters around the plant — some in bathroom stalls.
Earlier in the campaign, the union drew attention to changes to traffic light sequences outside the facility, giving its officials less time to talk to employees as they left work. Amazon said the move was designed to reduce congestion.
The UNI Global Union, a group representing more than 900 trade unions, said the effort in Bessemer had created a high-profile discussion on the working conditions at Amazon, whose workforce has swelled by more than 500,000 people since the start of the pandemic, and now totals 1.3m worldwide.
“The ‘Bessemer effect’ is electrifying the labour moment, inspiring action from Myanmar to Munich to Montevideo,” said Christy Hoffman, UNI general secretary.
“While this vote was happening, there were strikes in Germany and Italy, and a massive new effort to reach Amazon workers was launched in the UK. It will continue to give hope to workers demanding a voice at work and a job with dignity.
“Employees in Alabama — and Amazon workers everywhere — should keep their heads up and their eyes fixed on victory. Together, that is inevitable.”
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2021-04-09 17:25:02Z
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