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Summary
- Of the total votes, 1,798 were against unionizing while 738 were in favor. This verdict successfully thwarts an attempt to unionize warehouse workers in America.
- However, the retail, wholesale, and departmental store union has rejected Friday’s verdict and said that it will seek a judicial remedy to the problems faced by the workers.
- The company said that the union is only interested in collecting the workers’ hard-earned money in the form of dues but ignores the fact that it also pays the best in the industry.
Amazon on Friday, April 9, secured enough votes to defeat a drive for the unionization of its warehouse workers in the south-eastern US state of Alabama. In a historic vote, an overwhelming majority of the workers at Amazon’s facility in Bessemer favored against forming a union.
Of the total votes, 1,798 were against unionizing while 738 were in favor. This verdict successfully thwarts an attempt to unionize warehouse workers in America. More than half of nearly 5,900 workers in Amazon’s Bessemer facility had participated in the election, Amazon said in a release.
However, the retail, wholesale, and departmental store union has rejected Friday’s verdict and said that it will seek a judicial remedy to the problems faced by the workers. The union said it will stage a legal challenge against Amazon’s unfair labor practices, which allegedly created an atmosphere of intimidation and reprisals and limited workers’ freedom.
It also has urged the National Labor Relations Board to decide whether the election results should be kept aside for the sake of the larger labor concerns raised against the company. The union movement in Bessemer has been one of the most significant labor battles in the US in recent years.
Pic Credit: Pixabay.
Second-Largest Private Employer
With over 800,000 personnel under its payroll, Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the US, but it has also long been fighting against unionization. A similar vote in Delaware in 2014, had too rejected a union proposal. In the run-up to the vote, the e-commerce company had organized a flurry of “information sessions” to educate the workers about its position and how a union may not be the right answer to what they are looking for.
The company said that the union is only interested in collecting the workers’ hard-earned money in the form of dues but ignored the fact that it also pays the best in the industry at US$15 as a minimum starting salary plus other generous benefits. Those who voted against unionization said that the union hasn’t offered anything to them that the company doesn’t already offer.
According to analysts, unionization has always been a difficult proposition in some south-eastern states like Alabama. However, those who voted for a union described how workers get fired over disciplinary issues, as well as how issues of productivity quotas and more say in the organization highlight the company’s unfair labor practices.
The Amazon stock price (NASDAQ:AMZN) rose nearly 50 percent in the past 12 months. On Friday, it was trading at US$3,369.86 per share at 4.15 pm ET, up around 2 percent from previous close.
