Amazon Workers’ Union Drive Reaches Far Beyond Alabama
A vote on whether to form a union at the e-commerce giant’s warehouse in
Bessemer, Ala., has become a labor showdown, drawing the attention of
N.F.L. players, and the White House.
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The votes on whether to form a union at the Amazon fulfillment center in
Bessemer, Ala., need to be in by the end of the month.
The votes on whether to form a union at the Amazon fulfillment center in
Bessemer, Ala., need to be in by the end of the month.Credit...Bob
Miller for The New York Times
Michael Corkery <https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-corkery>Karen Weise
<https://www.nytimes.com/by/karen-weise>
ByMichael Corkery <https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-corkery>andKaren
Weise <https://www.nytimes.com/by/karen-weise>
* NYT, March 2, 2021,5:00 a.m. ET
Players from the National Football League were among the first to voice
their support. Then came Stacey Abrams, the Democratic star who helped
turn Georgia blue in the 2020 election. The actor Danny Glover traveled
to Bessemer, Ala., for a news conference last week, where he invoked the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s pro-union leanings in urging workers
at Amazon’s warehouse there to organize. Tina Fey has weighed in, and so
has Senator Bernie Sanders.
Then on Sunday, President Biden issued a resounding declaration of
solidarity with the workers now voting on whether to form a union at
Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, without mentioning the company by name.
Posted to his official Twitter account, his video was one of the most
forceful statements in support of unionizing by an American president in
recent memory.
“Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union,” Mr.
Biden said.
A unionizing campaign that haddeliberately stayed under the radar
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/business/amazon-union-alabama.html>for
months has in recent days blossomed into a star-studded showdown to
influence the workers. On one side is the Retail, Wholesale and
Department Store Union and its many pro-labor allies in the worlds of
politics, sports and Hollywood. On the other is one of the world’s
dominant companies, an e-commerce behemoth that has warded off previous
unionizing efforts at its U.S. facilities over its more than 25-year
history.
The attention is turning this union vote into a referendum not just on
working conditions at the Bessemer warehouse, which employs 5,800, but
on the plight of low-wage employees and workers of color in particular.
Many of the employees in the Alabama warehouse are Black, a fact that
the union organizers have highlighted in their campaign seeking to link
the vote to the struggle for civil rights in the South.
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The retail workers union has a long history of organizing Black workers
in the poultry and food production industries, helping them gain basic
benefits like paid time off and safety protections and a means to
economic security. The union is portraying its efforts in Bessemer as
part of that legacy.
“This is an organizing campaign in the right-to-work South during the
pandemic at one of the largest companies in the world,” said Benjamin
Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School. “The
significance of a union victory there really couldn’t be overstated.”
The warehouse workers began voting by mail on Feb. 8 and the ballots are
due at the end of this month. A union can form if a majority of the
votes cast favor such a move.
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ImageAmazon has posted signs in the facility and held meetings with
workers, urging them not to unionize.
Amazon has posted signs in the facility and held meetings with workers,
urging them not to unionize.Credit...Wes Frazer for The New York Times
Amazon’s countercampaign, both inside the warehouse and on a national
stage, has zeroed in on pure economics: that its starting wage is $15 an
hour, plus benefits. That is far more than its competitors in Alabama,
where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
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“It’s important that employees understand the facts of joining a union,”
Heather Knox, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We will
provide education about that and the election process so they can make
an informed decision. If the union vote passes, it will impact everyone
at the site and it’s important associates understand what that means for
them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon.” The company, which
went on ahuge hiring spree
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/technology/pushed-by-pandemic-amazon-goes-on-a-hiring-spree-without-equal.html>last
year as homebound customers sent its sales to a record $386 billion,
recorded more than $22 billion in profit.
In Alabama, some workers are growing weary of the process. One employee
recently posted on Facebook: “This union stuff getting on my nerves. Let
it be March 30th already!!!”
The situation is getting testy, with union leaders accusing Amazon of a
series of “union-busting” tactics.
The company has posted signs across the warehouse, next to hand
sanitizing stations and even in bathroom stalls. It sends regular texts
and emails, pointing out the problems with unions. It posts photos of
workers in Bessemer on the internal company app saying how much they
love Amazon.
At certain training sessions, company representatives have pointed out
the cost of union dues. When some workers have asked pointed questions
in the meetings, the Amazon representatives followed up with them at
their work stations re-emphasizing the downsides of unions, employees
and organizers say. The meetings stopped once the voting started, but
the signs are still up, said Jennifer Bates, a pro-union worker in the
warehouse.
In this charged atmosphere, even routine things have become suspect. The
union has raised questions about the changing of the timing of a traffic
light near the warehouse where labor organizers try to talk to the
workers as they are stopped in their vehicles while leaving the facility.
Amazon did ask county officials in mid-December to change the light’s
timing, though there is no evidence in thecounty records
<https://jeffersoncounty.nextrequest.com/requests/21-92>that the change
was made to thwart the union. “Traffic for Amazon is backing up around
shift change,”the public records
<https://jeffersoncounty.nextrequest.com/documents/6520863>stated as the
reason the county altered the light.
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Amazonregularly navigates traffic concerns
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/technology/amazon-new-york-politics-jobs.html>around
its facilities, and wasting unpaid time in congested parking lots is a
frequent gripe of Amazon workers in Facebook groups.
But the retail workers’ union president, Stuart Appelbaum, questioned
the timing of the request in Bessemer, coming as it did at the height of
the organizing. “When the light was red we could answer questions and
have a brief conversation with workers,” he said.
Last week, the union questioned an offer the company made to the Alabama
warehouse workers to pay them at least $1,000 if they quit by late
March. Mr. Appelbaum accused the company of trying to entice employees
to leave before the vote ended.
“They are trying to remove the most likely union supporters from their
work force by bribing them to leave and give up their vote,” he said in
an interview.
But “The Offer,” as it’s known among employees, was the same that Amazon
made to workers at all of its warehouses around the country. It is an
annual program that lets the company reduce its head count after the
peak holiday shopping season without layoffs. It has been in place since
at least 2014, when Jeff Bezos wrote about it in a shareholder letter.
“Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit,” Mr. Bezos said at
the time. “In the long run, an employee staying somewhere they don’t
want to be isn’t healthy for the employee or the company.”
Mr. Appelbaum was not swayed. He said he believed that Amazon had chosen
to make the offer across all of its warehouses when it did in order to
help eliminate possible “yes” votes in Bessemer.
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President Biden stopped short of urging the Amazon workers to unionize,
but his statement instantly raised the stakes of an already momentous
campaign.
“Let me be really clear,” Mr. Biden said. “It’s not up to me to decide
whether anyone should join a union. But let me be even more clear: It’s
not up to an employer to decide that, either. The choice to join a union
is up to the workers. Full stop.”
He added, “Workers in Alabama and all across America are voting on
whether to organize a union in their workplace. This is vitally
important — a vitally important choice.” And it is one, he said, that
should be made without intimidation or threats.
Image
Workers around the country, including Seattle, have expressed support
for the union vote in Alabama.
Workers around the country, including Seattle, have expressed support
for the union vote in Alabama.Credit...Jason Redmond/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
Despite the union’s suspicions, it has not filed any formal complaints
with the National Labor Relations Board, Mr. Appelbaum said. Typically,
unions can raise objections to a company’s tactics before an election
and the labor board can step in.
If a complaint were to be filed, the labor board could potentially
determine that the election is invalid because of Amazon’s actions. But
after working for months to build support inside and outside the Amazon
warehouse, the last thing the union wants is for the labor board to
intervene and rule that the election must be held again. The voting has
already been taking place in Bessemer for nearly a month.
Mr. Sachs, of Harvard Law School, said that despite Mr. Biden’s
admonishments of companies’ interfering in elections, the current labor
law does allow Amazon to hold certain mandatory meetings with workers to
discuss why they shouldn’t unionize and enables the company to post
anti-union messages around the workplace.
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“It is very helpful that the president is calling out these tactics, but
what we need is a new labor law to stop companies from interfering,” he
said.
It is rare for such a large union election to be held by mail. Over
Amazon’s objections, the labor board required a mail-in vote after
determining that federal election monitors would be at risk of
contracting Covid-19 if they had to travel to Bessemer to oversee
in-person voting.
By pushing back aggressively against the union, Amazon risks angering
Democrats in Washington, many of whom are already calling for more
antitrust scrutiny of big tech companies, whose businesses have grown
even larger in the pandemic. Amazon has mounted a public campaign
supporting legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour,
buying prominent ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post and
other publications.
In his video on Sunday, President Biden specifically mentioned how
unions can help “Black and brown workers” and vulnerable workers
struggling during the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic.
Ms. Bates, 48, one of the leaders of the union drive, started working at
the Bessemer warehouse in May.
She said she felt insulted by some of Amazon’s anti-union efforts,
particularly the company’s statements to the staff that they would be
required to pay nearly $500 in union dues every year. Because Alabama is
a right-to-work state, there is no such requirement that a union member
pay dues.
“It angers me a little bit because I feel like they know the truth and
they won’t tell the truth and are taking advantage because they know
employees come from a community that is looked on as Black and low
income,” said Ms. Bates, who is Black. “It felt really horrible that you
would stand there and mislead people intentionally. Give them the facts
and let them decide.”
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