We can get an idea this week of how the Bessemer Amazon union vote is going.
This is because the union that can represent employees of the online giant’s fulfillment center in Alabama has said that the portion of the election where ballot papers can be challenged has ended.
According to the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, a total of 3,215 votes were received by the National Labor Relations Board during the election. About 5,800 ballots were sent to workers in the fulfillment center in early February.
Election conditions stipulate that workers who are terminated or dismissed due to a pay period ending on 9 January are not entitled to vote. It is unclear how many of the workers received ballots.
It is also unknown how many ballots have been disputed in the past week.
The union election is the largest that the NLRB has overseen since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The counting of votes began last Tuesday. But first, each ballot was reviewed by Amazon and the RWDSU, with either side being able to challenge whether the ballot should be counted.
Here’s a full coverage of the Alabama Amazon union effort
Once the challenge section is complete, members of the media can see the vote in the public section.
The union said in a statement tonight that “hundreds of challenged ballots will mostly be addressed by the employer” after the public count.
“As the ballot envelopes are opened and the vote is counted, there is a possibility that more issues could affect the final outcome,” the union said.
The election will be decided by a simple majority. Disputes over the vote on the disputed ballot papers will be decided by the NLRB regional director, and the decisions can be appealed to the council in Washington, DC.