BESSEMER, Alabama (AP) – Some Democratic members of Congress and leaders of the national union on Friday tried to rust support for the unification of a massive Amazon facility outside Birmingham, and the organizational campaign of Alabama workers with the compare civil rights movement.
Voting by about 6,000 workers at the sprawling distribution facility began in February and will last until the end of March. This is the biggest organizing effort in Amazon’s history, which has the highest interest for the second largest employer in the country, which holds a record of the crushing union efforts in its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores.
The outcome is critical for Amazon and organized labor in general.
If Alabama’s effort succeeds, it could spark a chain reaction in Amazon’s operations nationwide, with thousands of workers demanding better working conditions and wanting to negotiate collective bargaining. It would also be seen as a blessing to other labor sectors in the historic anti-union south and beyond.
U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, whose congressional district in Alabama includes the Bessemer facility, welcomed four fellow members of the House Democratic Caucus to draw attention to the vote. Sewell noted that the visit of the delegation commemorates days before Selma, her hometown, Bloody Sunday, and the 1965 Voting March.
“These workers follow a rich tradition … to crucify against something that is wrong,” Sewell said, adding that employees’ argument that Amazon’s working conditions and pay are inadequate.
“The world is watching Alabama win once,” she said. “Birmingham, Bessemer, it’s so important that the world knows that Alabama is once again standing up for civil rights and human rights.”
Reps Nikema Williams of Georgia, Cori Bush of Missouri, Andy Levin of Michigan and Jamal Bowman of New York traveled to Alabama to meet Amazon employees and officials from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union who want to organize workers.
The group met at the union’s headquarters and also went to an intersection outside the Amazon complex.
The visit comes ahead of next week’s expected vote on the PRO Act, a union-backed proposal aimed at strengthening workers’ ability to organize in collective bargaining unions. Lawmakers have said they expect the measure to pass through the Democratic House, but acknowledge that it faces an uphill battle in the 50-50 Senate, where Republican opposition is likely enough to prevent the act from getting the 60 votes required to pass the most important legislation.
At the Alabama facility, a majority of the 6,000 workers would have to vote ‘yes’ to organize the facility. Amazon has tried unsuccessfully to slow down the voting and to have to vote in person.
The company, which increased profits and revenue during the pandemic, worked hard to convince workers that a union would only cost them money. Industry officials say workers are getting what they want from a union: benefits, career growth and pay starting at $ 15 an hour.
Others dispute it.
Levin, the Michigan congressman who was once a union organizer, calls it ‘the most important election for the working class in this country.’