The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has rejected a set of proposals from Amazon to delay a union election in a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. Employees at the warehouse will begin voting on Monday, February 8, whether they will join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).
Amazon has filed two motions to delay the process, including an attempt to force a personal vote, despite the ongoing pandemic risks. Both motions were denied by the NLRB.
“Once again, Amazon workers have once again won a battle in their bid to win a union vote,” the RWDSU said in a statement. “Today’s decision proves that Amazon has long been respecting its own employees; and allow them to cast their votes without intimidation and interference. ”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon has had a rocky response to union efforts in its warehouses. In 2020, Amazon coordinated efforts to humiliate an organizer of employees in a warehouse in Staten Island in public – notes of a coordinating meeting were later obtained by Vice News. Later that year, reporters caught the protesters recruiting analysts to ‘monitor labor threats’. The list was deleted shortly thereafter.
Many of Amazon’s European fulfillment centers are organized; workers in Germany went on strike last June over alleged inadequate protection against the coronavirus.