“We demand a comprehensive investigation into Amazon’s behavior to spoil this election,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU, said in a statement.
However, the company pushed back against the unions ‘demands, arguing that the union did not accept the employees’ choice to reject the union.
“The fact is that less than 16% of employees at BHM1 voted to join a union,” Amazon spokeswoman Heather Knox said in a statement. ‘The union seems determined to misrepresent the facts in order to pursue its own agenda. We look forward to the next steps in the legal process. ”
The objections: The union cites various steps taken by the company, including: installing a ballot box, warning of layoffs as workers’ union, terminating a union supporter for issuing union cards and hiring police officers to clear the parking lot patrol to watch employees and union organizers.
The union said such action had a cold effect on workers who violated their rights under federal labor laws.
The RWDSU has asked the NLRB regional director to hold a hearing to decide whether the outcome of the election should be pronounced due to Amazon’s alleged illegal actions.
“After an intensive anti-union campaign designed by Amazon to intimidate and manipulate, the union said in a statement, ‘workers are seeking the opportunity to finally have the right to fair representation, a seat at the table and a real chance to fix the issue of problems that Amazon employees have been facing for far too long. ”
The mailbox: According to e-mails obtained under a request for freedom of information filed by the RWDSU, Amazon pushed the U.S. Postal Service to install a private mailbox at the facility just before workers would mail with their ballots. However, when the NLRB set out the rules for how the election would take place, he said that the use of ‘equipment clearly belonging to the employer’ and the monitoring of the voting tent ‘could give the impression of the supervision or detection’ of the voices of the workers.
“Although the NLRB definitively rejected Amazon’s request for a subject box on the warehouse property, Amazon was of the opinion that it was above the law and in any case worked with the postal service to install one,” says Apple tree. “They did it because it had a clear ability to intimidate workers.”
But Amazon argues that the attempt was to ensure that every employee could vote easily.
“This mailbox – to which only the USPS had access – was a simple, secure and completely optional way to make it easy for employees to vote,” Knox said in a statement, “no more and no less. “
Bezos’ answer: While the e-commerce giant defended its behavior during the Bessemer election, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said last week that he believes the company “should do a better job for our employees” following the union.
‘Do you comfort your chairman with the result of the recent trade union vote in Bessemer? No, he does not, ”Bezos wrote in a letter to shareholders. “Although the voting results have been skewed and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it is clear to me that we need a better vision of how we create value for employees – a vision for their success.”