Amazon workers can make a breakthrough at a company that does everything in its power to trample organized labor. Nearly 6,000 Employees in Bessemer, Alabama, fulfillment center will soon be able to vote whether you should unite; ballot papers must be submitted by 29 March, and the National Labor Relations Board will count them the next day.
Someone, however, is not happy about the organizing efforts.
A person or entity made a crude, cartoonish anti-union website, Doitwithoutdues.com. “HEY BHM1 DOERS, why are you paying almost $ 500 in fees?”, Reads a splash photo of a warehouse worker throwing up his thumbs. (BHM1 is the name of the Bessemer warehouse.) ‘We have covered you * with high wages, health care, vision and dental benefits, as well as a safety committee and a career process. There is so much MORE you can do for your career and your family without paying fees. ”
Amidst cheerful embellishments – an Amazon package with hearts and a GIF of a corgi spinning a plate – the website misleadingly claims that workers will be locked up payment fees. (This is not true: Nsomeone is forced to become a union member who has to be paid, even if employees vote for union.) The website provides a portal for workers to return tickets they would have signed to submit a request for election to the National To do Labor Relations Board.
At the bottom of the footer, the website displays an Amazon logo. An Amazon spokesman did not confirm or deny that the site was linked to the company in an email.
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The BHM1 warehouse opened early in the pandemic, when Amazon on a rent spree. The pandemic also correlated with a nationwide wave of workers arranging, including protest marches unsafe conditions and fair payment; meanwhile increased public inquiry plus rising demand they gave a little more leverage. Amazon workers have been fighting to organize for years, and Amazon met with anti-union propaganda and supervision, as well as dismissal. (Although it’s illegal to fire a worker for organization, Amazon workers in Alabama can be fired at any time for any reason without a union.)
If workers vote to unite, they will be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The RWDSU declined to comment but previously supported Whole Foods employeesan attempt to unite a union worker on Staten Island who was fired after speaking for better working conditions.
In a statement emailed to Gizmodo, Amazon did not say it was anti-union in itself, but that “we do not believe that the RDWSU represents the majority of our employees’ views.” It’s unclear where the RDWSU’s’ views’ differ from those of employees, but Amazon claims it’s some of the best work available anywhere we hire ‘.
This may still be true, but workers may also want things like job stability and a grievance procedure so they do not have to choose their amazing job over things like go to bathroom. Workers can also negotiate for hazardous payment, which the company allowed and then revoked a few months into the pandemic. (In October, before the worst winter storm, the company said that nearly 20,000 workers have contracted covid-19.) This adds to the years of reports of brutally long shifts under supervision, revealed recent reports overwhelming tariffs injuries in the warehouses of the company.
Amazon, the New York Times pointed out, has not yet come so close to a union since 2014, when the vast majority of 27 technical workers voted against union. A representative of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers then said that workers’ came under tremendous pressure from managers and anti-union consultants. ‘