For more than a year, a group of workers in Bessemer, Alabama, have been working to unite their warehouse under the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), hoping to force the retail giant for the first time negotiate jointly with its warehouse workers. . On Friday, the hope suddenly came to an end. During a unified election, workers in the warehouse voted more than 2-1 against the union, with 738 votes against 1798.
This is a devastating loss for the RWDSU and the labor movement in general. The union is still fighting the result – objecting and arguing that Amazon’s campaign violates labor laws – but the challenges are unlikely to change the outcome. After dreaming of a domino effect that could unite Amazon warehouses across the country, organizers are now fighting to keep that dream alive.
But while the unequivocal result came as a surprise to many people, it is a long frustrating history for American labor organizers. In simple terms, not many American workers are united, and organizers are accustomed to waging an uphill battle to unite new workplaces. Outside of government jobs, only 6.3 percent of U.S. workers belong to a union, a number that has fallen slightly over the past decade. Southern industrial workers were a particularly sore point for the labor movement, with similar driving losses at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga in 2019 and a Nissan plant in Mississippi in 2017. Seen in this context, the loss of Bessemer is less than a surprising victory. for Amazon and more of a depressing return to the norm.
“It’s a blow to the labor movement, but it’s part of a pattern that’s been going on in the American business world for a long time,” said Professor Dan Cornfield, a labor sociologist at Vanderbilt University.
Another force working against organizers is U.S. labor law, which gives employers a wide space to promote an anti-union message in the workplace. Amazon has been aggressively taking action against the union in recent months, placing anti-RWDSU leaflets in warehouse bathrooms and bombarding workers with targeted text messages. But while organizers view this tactic as dirty fighting, it is all within the bounds of current legislation.
“Our labor laws are piled against the people who have to protect them,” said Rebecca Kolins Givan, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. “It’s very difficult for workers to organize a union, and ridiculously easy for employers to bully them out of it.”
Tactics such as the “captivity” meeting – in which employers force workers to attend trade union workshops as part of their job – are particularly controversial among labor activists. “Part of the problem is that the legislation gives the employer too much room to interfere,” said Benjamin Sachs, a Kestnbaum professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School. “So the union can’t challenge much about what Amazon did, like inmates of audience meetings, because the law is that the employer has the right to do that.”
Some also point out tactical mistakes in the campaign. Organizers reduced home visits with workers due to the pandemic, but instead worked to reach workers in the area outside the warehouse. There was also significant confusion about the unit itself, with organizers underestimating the number of eligible workers by thousands in the early stages of the campaign. While the margin of 1,060 votes may seem daunting, it is dwarfed by the thousands of employees in the unit who did not vote at all, whether due to indifference or intimidation.
For Cornfield, the economy of the region was the most important force. As in much of the state, Alabama’s unemployment rate rose during the pandemic, from 2.6 percent to 13.6 percent from March to April. It was a huge economic shock for the region and possibly put a dark cloud over the union effort.
“If an employer acts aggressively and a large part of the workforce has experienced unemployment in a recession, Cornfield is ‘it’s a deadly combination for workers who might otherwise see the merits of trade union.’
Now that the Bessemer battle is over, many working groups can do to level the playing field. There is particular hope that the National Labor Relations Council under Biden will begin to change the rules around prisoner meetings and other tactics. The PRO Act, which is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate, will go even further and impose monetary fines on managers who, among other things, hold labor legislation. But in the meantime, any future efforts to organize Amazon warehouses will have a much longer chance.
“I know the outcome is not what many people wanted to hear,” Michael Foster, one of Bessemer’s leading RWDSU organizers, told a news conference on Friday. “But I believe it’s the foundation of something great … it’s by no means the end.”