The union at an Amazon (AMZN) warehouse in Alabama is on its way to defeat, revealing partial results of the historic election. Votes against the union had a 2-1 lead on votes for the union, with half of the votes counted late Thursday, according to a live broadcast of the score reported by The New York Times.
The upcoming result concludes a sensational, months-long labor battle that unfolded when the COVID-19 pandemic boosted record sales for the e-commerce giant but exposed its warehouse workers to life-and-death safety risks.
The result would be a significant victory for Amazon, the country’s second-largest employer in the private sector, which has come under strong criticism over the past few months over the conditions in its large warehouse network. Meanwhile, the score hits a blow to the labor movement, which has been eager to reverse decades of union decline and gain a foothold in the growing technology sector.
Votes were cast by 3,200 Amazon employees at the facility in Bessemer, Al, about 55% of the workers eligible to participate, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU, said.
Workers have criticized critical circumstances enforced by digital devices, which they say are being followed up every minute. Employees also claim that inadequate safety protection has increased stress and health risks to COVID-19. But Amazon has strongly rebuked such claims, citing a number of security measures implemented during the pandemic, and a compensation package that includes benefits and entry-level payment of $ 15.30, more than double the federal minimum wage.
While the vote count is still ongoing, Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU, said on Thursday that the labor organization will appeal to the labor council to hold Amazon responsible for alleged illegal counter-union behavior by the technology giant. A union challenge at the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, could take months, but if successful, it will confirm the outcome and require a second election.
Paul Clark, director of the Penn State School of Labor and Employment Relations, said before the final vote that Amazon is likely to have violated labor laws in its anti-union campaign.
“There is a lot of evidence that employers often transgress because the fines only provide an incentive to comply with the law,” he says. “The union is appealing, perhaps the board finds irregularities, in which case they can repeat the election.”
Amazon announced its anti-union position in an aggressive campaign carried out by several avenues, including mandatory meetings and a website that warned of heavy payments. But under federal labor law, employers can have a wide margin to ward off workers to support a labor urge.
The messages came down to ‘anti-union propaganda’, Appelbaum told Yahoo Finance last month. (The company has complied with all NLRB rules and guidelines regarding union campaigns, and believes it is important that all employees understand all aspects of the union election, Amazon told Yahoo Finance in February.)
‘Outsized’ meaning for both sides
Erik Loomis, a labor historian and professor at the University of Rhode Island, said on the last day of voting, March 29, that the result would carry “great symbolic significance” for Amazon and the labor movement.
‘On the face of it, the interests of both parties should not be so great; it’s one warehouse, ‘says Loomis. But “the symbolic significance of this union vote is excessive for both sides.”
“The labor movement has struggled in recent decades to switch to the new economy, and this is an opportunity to turn the tide,” he adds. “For Amazon, it’s about controlling the workplace.”
The union has attracted a lot of interest from top officials on both sides of the aisle in Washington DC, President Joe Biden has released video in early March defending the right of workers to unions and referring to “workers in Alabama” without mentioning Amazon, which is widely regarded as an allusion to the labor struggle by the technology giant.
During the last weeks of conciliation, which runs from early February to the end of March, a worker at the plant pleads for the union during a hearing of the powerful Senate Budget Committee, chaired by progressive senator Bernie Sanders (I- VT), who later visited the plant in Bessemer. The union workers also received support from Conservative Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who limited his position as part of a larger effort to curb the cultural influence of liberal-minded technology giants.
For years, Amazon has resisted persistent criticism over the conditions in its warehouse network, which has grown to at least 110 fulfillment centers in North America. In recent years, criticism of working conditions has focused on demanding quotas and digital surveillance, which employees say penalized them for taking breaks.
The company introduced a $ 15 wage floor three years ago and last month supported legislation that would gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $ 7.25 to $ 15 per hour. But the national interest in the Bessemer union has prompted more than 1,000 Amazon employees across the U.S. to contact RWDSU about possible efforts to organize labor, the union said in March.
“We all tend to think that unions are about wages and benefits,” says Ileen Devault, a professor of labor history at Cornell University and director of the school’s Worker Institute. “More so, unions are a way for workers to have a voice in their workplaces.”
“Why should an algorithm push people beyond their physical endurance, especially in a time of global pandemic?” she asked.
The new coronavirus has fueled record e-commerce revenue for Amazon, as hundreds of millions of Americans have been forced to their homes, causing the hiring of hundreds of thousands of workers to take place and plans to expand the warehouse network. But it also sparked a new set of grievances about health risks and inadequate compensation for the pandemic. By October last year, 19,816 employees had tested positive or rated positive for COVID-19, Amazon said this month.
Shortly after the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, workers at a Staten Island warehouse initially protested over fears of exposure to coronavirus. In the ensuing months, the protests grew to hundreds of workers spread across 50 warehouses nationwide. The worker who arranged ended up in the union vote that filled a facility estimate in a facility in Bessemer, Alabama, where 85% of the workers are black, last month.
“Just because you get paid does not mean you are treated fairly,” said Derrick Palmer, 32, an employee at the Staten Island Warehouse who traveled to the Bessemer facility in February to support the union.
Palmer said he and some associates discussed at the Staten Island plant to restart a union that failed two years ago; he heard of workers at other facilities wanting to start their own union efforts.
Before he knew the outcome of the election, Palmer said its impact was already clear.
“It will inspire other workers to organize,” he says.
Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Find him on twitter @MaxZahn_.
Dan Howley is the technical editor of Yahoo Finance. Find him on Twitter @DanielHowley.
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