Tensions have been building at this warehouse in a small town in central Alabama for weeks before a milestone vote began this week on the formation of the first American union in Amazon’s nearly 27-year history.
The fact that the push to unite has made it so far is unlikely by several counts. Not only do the workers assume the second largest employer in the United States, whose business has risen in the face of the global pandemic, but these workers are based in the South, where union representation is lower than in other parts of the country. . This effort was not only galvanized by a group of employees of the Amazon Bessemer plant, but also with union workers from other local plants, including poultry workers, already represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, who pleaded for their safety if poultry plants have been hit hard by the virus.
Jennifer Bates, an employee organizer at the Bessemer facility who worked at Amazon shortly after the warehouse opened last year, is in itself a great achievement. “We did not know how to reach so many people,” Bates, a learning ambassador who helps train other workers at the facility, told CNN Business. “Amazon is so big. We have four floors and thousands of people in there. But we realized there are enough voices and enough problems. You can have complaints at any job, but it was crying.”
Bates, who said she was represented by a union in a previous position, ticked off a list of issues that employees hope to improve with union representation, including adequate breaks, better procedures for submitting and receiving responses to grievances, higher wages, as well as protection against Amazon applying illegal policies such as social distancing to discipline workers.
In a statement to CNN Business in January regarding the union effort, Amazon spokeswoman Heather Knox said: “We opened this site in March and have since created more than 5,000 full-time jobs in Bessemer, with an average salary of $ 15. “30 per hour, including full health care, vision and dental insurance, 50% 401 (K) corresponds to the first day of work; in safe, innovative, inclusive environments, with training, continuing education and long-term career growth.”
“We work hard to support our teams and more than 90% of the contributors on our Bessemer website say they would recommend Amazon as a great place to work for their friends,” Knox added. Over the past year, Amazon has repeatedly said that safety is a priority, as well as that it is a “zero tolerance for retaliation against employees who cause concern.”
While the pandemic was a boon to Amazon’s business, it was also a factor behind a more general employee uprising. Workers at other facilities have expressed concern about the youngster with the productivity of the business while maintaining social distance and other pandemic-related precautions. Meanwhile, Amazon has slowly recalled some of its pandemic security policies. The company suspended its unlimited unpaid time in May, as well as its $ 2 hourly wage push and double overtime pay in June; it has reintroduced its ‘time off task’ benchmark to track employee productivity this fall. It is also re-establishing the daily stand-up meetings, which have been interrupted since the start of the pandemic, but
resume soon as ‘social distance meetings for small groups.’
Amazon said it has done more than 150 process updates to ensure the health and safety of its employees. The company, which still offers up to two weeks of paid free time for employees diagnosed with the coronavirus, also handed out two special bonuses to front-line workers as its pandemic-related wage push was eliminated.
“The pandemic has opened the eyes of many people that workers really need a voice in their workplace to protect themselves,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU. “People are worried about their lives.”
At the same time, workers at Bessemer are motivated by the ongoing racial movement, according to Appelbaum, who said about 85% of the workforce is black. “People were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement to stand up for their own rights and dignity,” Appelbaum said. “This campaign was just as much a civil rights campaign as a labor campaign. We’re talking about basic dignity for working women and men.”
It is unclear whether the union push will eventually succeed. The Washington Post previously reported that more than 3,000 Amazon employees had signed maps showing support for the union, although the company’s high turnover and the fact that some employees are seasonal are not all still at the company.
“The most aggressive anti-union campaign I’ve seen
While some Amazon employees are united in Europe, the company has so far repelled unions in the United States. A much smaller union election was held in a warehouse in Delaware in 2014, but led to workers rejecting the effort.
To counter Bessemer’s current effort, Amazon hired a former Republican member of the NLRB to help with his fight. It launched an anti-union website warning against paying fees: “do not buy that meal, do not buy those school supplies, do not buy the gifts, because you did not pay more than $ 500.” And it conveyed its position on unions by sending numerous text messages to workers, dragging them to one-on-one meetings on the warehouse floor and meeting them every few shifts to attend group meetings, the workers and the union said. told CNN Business. (Knox said in a statement to CNN Business this week that Amazon “provided education that helps employees understand the facts of joining a union.”)
The group meetings, also known as “prisoners”, must be adjourned 24 hours before an election; a company spokesman had earlier told the Post it would comply. According to Hirsch, Amazon’s insistence on holding a personal election may be due, at least in part, to the fact that the company cannot hold these meetings for the longer duration of the election period, which could make it more difficult for the company oppose the union’s efforts to attract workers during this time.
Amazon spokeswoman Maria Boschetti said in a statement to CNN Business last week that the company’s “goal” of winning a personal election is to provide “the fairest and most effective format for maximum employee participation” effected ‘.
All in all, Appelbaum calls it ‘the most aggressive anti-union campaign I’ve seen’.
Workers are now left to sort the mixed messages. One Bessemer employee, who requested to have his name withheld for fear of retaliation, said they were surprised at the financial impact of money and the potential benefits of union representation.
The worker, who has not yet decided to choose, was initially attracted to the job due to the set hours and schedule, but is now concerned about the safety measures of the pandemic in the facility. ‘If you do not want the people to have a union, you must do everything [to address the concerns], or at least piece by piece, ‘said the worker.
Another Bessemer employee, Dawn Hoag, is determined on how she will vote: “No.” She said she did not feel Amazon hid the terms of the job when she was hired. “Not everyone will like having to work hard,” Hoag, a seasonal process assistant, said she would ask to switch to another facility if the union succeeds. ‘I do not see a point in paying anyone else to fight my battles. I always said you had to fight your own battles. ‘
Workers at other Amazon warehouses in the United States note the result. Andre Goodin, an Amazon employee, told a Baltimore plant that he and several of his colleagues were talking about the vote in the Alabama union, believe it or not. Goodin, who previously also did union work, said he believes there are quite a few things that could possibly be improved with the support of a union.
“We hear from Amazon workers across the country. I think what has happened so far is important, regardless of the outcome of the election,” RWDSU’s Appelbaum said. “It opens the door to more organization in the future. It opens the door and shows that you can stand up against Amazon.”
