Amazon illegally interrupted the Alabama warehouse vote
Key takeaways:
- On Thursday, the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union blamed Amazon for illegally interrupting the union election at Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse.
- The union filed 21 complaints to the National Labor Relations Board, alleging Amazon released a pro-union worker and threatened to shut the warehouse if workers voted in a union.
- The election stays too tight to call and hinges on some hundred questioned ballots.
Amazon illegally interrupted a recent union election at an Alabama storage, according to a report on Thursday from the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, the union which managed the campaign.
The RWDSU on Thursday filed objections to the National Labor Relations Board, arguing Amazon “made an atmosphere of chaos, coercion, and fear of reprisals and thus interfered with the workers’ liberation of choice” to join or leave a union.
The complaint arrives a week after the NLRB finished adding ballots in a closely-watched election at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. Union supporters just trailed rivals at the facility, known as BHM, but 416 challenged ballots stayed. Of the counted ballots, the anti-union side is just up by 118 votes.
The NLRB will arrange a hearing to examine the union’s objections.
The RWDSU benefits from momentum in the labor movement within Amazon and more broadly. The previous week, employees at an Amazon warehouse on New York’s Staten Island overwhelmingly voted to include Amazon’s first U.S. union. However, the firm is expected to file objections in the coming days.
And in Bessemer, the margin had shrunk since last year, when workers held an initial vote on whether to unionize. In that election, which was conducted via mail ballot, the NLRB found unlawful interference by Amazon.
Following the second election, the RWDSU filed 21 objections with the NLRB, charging Amazon with intimidating workers with shutting the warehouse if they organized. The union argued Amazon fired a worker who was an outspoken supporter of the union and suspended another pro-union worker.