Amazon workers at a giant warehouse in Alabama on Friday ruled against the formation of a union, inflicting the most important organization in the Internet giant’s history and inflicting a crushing blow on Labor and Democrats when conditions were ripe for them. to make progress.
Workers cast 1798 votes against a union, which gave Amazon enough to emphatically defeat the effort. According to federal officials, there are less than 30 percent of the votes in the ballots in favor of a union at 738.
The sudden turnout at the 6,000-person warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., Came just because the effects of the pandemic on the economy and the election of a pro-labor president made the country more aware of the plight of essential workers.
Amazon, which has repeatedly destroyed labor activism, appeared vulnerable because it was increasingly investigating its market power and influence in Washington and around the world. President Biden has shown support for the union effort, as has Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent in Vermont. The pandemic, which has driven millions of people to shop online, has also raised questions about Amazon’s ability to keep employees safe.
But in an aggressive campaign, the company argued that its workers had access to paid work without involving a union. The win leaves Amazon free to handle employees on its own terms, as it has had a service wage and expanded its workforce to more than 1.3 million people.
Margaret O’Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who is researching the history of technology companies, said Amazon’s message that it offers good jobs with good wages prevailed over criticism from the union and its supporters. . The result, she said, “sounds like a justification.”
She added that the election, although it was just one warehouse, attracted so much attention that it became a ‘bell player’. Amazon’s victory would probably make organized labor think, ‘Maybe it’s not worth trying elsewhere,’ ‘she said. O’Mara said.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which led the fight, blamed the defeat for what according to Amazon’s anti-union tactics before and during the vote, which took place from early February to late last month. The union said it would challenge the outcome and ask federal labor officials to investigate Amazon for creating an “atmosphere of confusion, coercion and / or fear of retaliation.”
“Our system is broken,” said Stuart Appelbaum, the union’s president. “Amazon took full advantage of it.”
Amazon said in a statement: “The union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated our employees, but that is not true.” It added: “Amazon did not win – our employees made the choice to vote against a union.”
About half of the 5,876 eligible voters at the warehouse voted during the election. A majority of votes, or 1,521, was needed to win. About 500 ballots were largely disputed by Amazon, the union said. Those ballots were not counted. If a union had voted, it would have been the first for Amazon workers in the United States.
William and Lavonette Stokes, who started working at the Bessemer warehouse in July, said the union did not convince them how it could improve their working conditions. Amazon already offers great benefits, relatively high salaries starting at $ 15 an hour and opportunities to advance, the couple, who have five children, said.
“Amazon is the only job I know of where they pay your health insurance from Day 1,” she said. Stokes, 52, said. She added that the organizations are trying to drive the union as an extension of the Black Lives Matter movement because most black people work.
“It was not an African-American case,” she said. Stokes, who is black, said. “I feel you can work comfortably there without being harassed.”
At a news conference organized by Amazon on Friday, Mr. Stokes and other workers said they were concerned that they wanted the company to pay attention, such as better training and anti-bias coaching for managers.
“We just feel like we can do it without the union,” he said. “Why should the union pay to do what we can do ourselves?”
The union Amazon workers said they were disillusioned by the result. “Obviously we are going to be disappointed and angry about the way this election went,” Emmet Ashford, a Bessemer warehouse worker, told a trade union news conference.
He and other workers said they hoped the election result would be rejected because of Amazon’s anti-union tactics, adding that they were proud to inspire workers at other warehouses to consider taking them united.
“Our time will come again,” he said. Ashford said.
The vote could lead to a rethinking of strategy within the labor movement.
Union organizers have been trying for years to take advantage of growing concerns about low-wage workers breaking into Amazon. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union organized critical themes to support black essential workers in the pandemic. The union estimated that 85 percent of the workers at the Bessemer warehouse were black.
The inability to organize the warehouse also follows decades of unsuccessful and costly union attempts at Walmart, the only U.S. company that employs more people than Amazon. The repeated failures at two large companies could encourage labor organizers to focus more on national policies, such as a higher federal minimum wage, than on uniting individual workplaces.
Democrats in Washington, who have put their full weight behind the union effort, said the loss shows they need to insist on changes in labor and antitrust laws. The House of Representatives has approved an extension of workers’ protection this year, but it is unlikely to be approved by the Senate.
“Workers can’t organize absentee labor law reform in America, period,” Representative Andy Levin, a Michigan Democrat who visited Bessemer, said in an interview.
The Amazon warehouse, on the outskirts of Birmingham, opened a year ago, just as the pandemic took hold. This was part of a major expansion at the company that accelerated during the pandemic. Last year, Amazon grew to more than 400,000 employees in the United States, where it now has nearly a million employees. Warehouse workers usually collect and order orders of items for customers.
The union effort came together quickly, especially for one who was aiming for such a big target. A small group of workers in the building in Bessemer approached the local branch of the trade union for retailers last summer. They were frustrated with how Amazon was constantly monitoring technology every second of their workday, and they felt that their managers were unwilling to listen to their complaints.
Organizers seem to have strong support early on, and at least 2,000 workers are getting cards to sign that they want election, enough for the National Labor Relations Council, which does union elections, to approve a vote.
Some labor experts said the erosion of early support shows the power employers have in the campaign against unions by holding compulsory meetings and talking to employees during working hours about the disadvantage of the organization. Others said the union’s failure reflected problems with organizational tactics, including gaining the support of national politicians and celebrities.
The election was held by mail, a concession to the pandemic. Instead of holding an election in just a few days, workers had more than a month to complete and submit their ballots, which would appear on March 29.
Amazon’s public campaign focused on the company’s benefits and the minimum wage of $ 15, which is twice the minimum in Alabama. Internally, it stressed that workers do not need to pay union membership to have an excellent job. The company’s slogan – “Do it without fees” – was sent to workers in text messages, mandatory meetings and signs in bathrooms.
Me. O’Mara said the complaints that the union had surfaced about job stability and safety were making the organization of workers more difficult. “It’s because the perishability of warehouses works against solidarity and a willingness to invest in that employer and that job,” she said.
Some union leaders said the campaign in Bessemer would further the goals of Labor, even if it ended in loss.
The election has generated a great deal of coverage and discussion, and people across the country are hearing that unions are the solution, ‘said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants. “We could really discuss what the union is actually doing.”
Yet many labor leaders said the Amazon Association is critical to reversing the long-term decline in union membership, which fell to just over 6 percent of the private sector in the early 1980s.
They argued that Amazon has the power over millions of workers in the industries in which it operates. The company’s dominance has forced its competitors to apply its labor practices, placing a priority on efficiency.
“Amazon is transforming industries one after the other,” he said. Appelbaum, the president of the retail workers’ union, said in an interview in 2019. “Amazon’s vision of the world is not the vision we want or can tolerate.” He frequently referred to the attempt to unite Amazon as a struggle over ‘the future of work’.
Reporting was contributed by Noam Scheiber, Sophia June, David McCabe and Miles McKinley.