Trade union fails to win over Amazon workers in ballot

Senator Bernie Sanders had backed the failed union bid

Matt Day, Josh Eidelson and Spencer Soper

April 10 2021 02:30 AM

Amazon clinched a victory in a historic election to determine whether workers at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, will become the first in the US to join a retail union.

With disputed ballots yet to be reviewed, Amazon had 1,798 ‘no’ votes, a clear majority of the 3,215 ballots cast. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) had 738.

With Amazon already well ahead in the tally on Thursday, the union pledged to appeal the result.

In a statement, the RWDSU confirmed it would file complaints with the National Labor Relations Board accusing Amazon of violating employees’ rights in the election and asking the agency to consider overturning the result.

“We won’t rest until workers’ voices are heard fairly under the law,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said.

“When they are, we believe they will be victorious in this historic and critical fight to unionize the first Amazon warehouse in the United States.”

Citing documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, the RWDSU accused the company of “corrupting the election” by pressuring the US Postal Service to install a mailbox on Amazon property in an effort to make employees to cast their ballots there rather than somewhere free of company surveillance.

Employees have also said that Amazon used mandatory group meetings and one-on-one discussions to predict
harmful consequences if they unionized.

Amazon has said that it hosted “information sessions” so employees could “understand the facts” about unionization, and told the Washington Post that the mailbox was a “simple, secure, and completely optional” way to make voting easier.

The company declined to comment on Appelbaum’s accusations.

The labour board has been tallying the ballots from its office nearby Birmingham and beaming the process live to the media via a Zoom video link.

Approximately 5,800 workers were eligible to vote, and turnout was roughly 55pc.

The fiercely fought mail-in election lasted seven weeks and attracted global attention.

If the RWDSU had prevailed, the unionisation drive could have spread to other Amazon facilities, some of which are already seeing stirrings of labour activism in reaction to working conditions and Covid.

A loss for the union would be a setback for the US labour movement, which has been in decline for decades.