United States: unionisation campaign at Amazon in Alabama

Amazon employees at one of the e-commerce giant’s fulfilment centres – in Birmingham, Alabama – are to vote on whether they want to join a trade union. The process will be supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. The 6,000 workers, which includes full-time, part-time and seasonal staff, will be able to vote by mail from 8 February until 29 March. If there is a vote in favour, the workers will join the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which already has a presence at department store chain Macy’s, as well as the fashion retailers H&M and Zara. The Amazon leadership in the United States has, until now, managed to keep unions at an arm’s length. The last unionisation campaign was back in 2014, when a majority of technicians at a warehouse in Delaware voted against forming a union. Since then however, there have been several incidents that have provoked the anger of staff and the Covid-19 pandemic has complicated matters further, with many essential workers taking the view that company measures to protect staff have been insufficient. Amazon’s management prefers to manage its employee relations directly, without a union. The group points to its minimum hourly wage of $15, its health insurance and its safety committee. “Why bother with a union when you already have all these benefits,” they ask at Amazon. For their part, RWDSU officials hope to do better. Amazon argued for a face-to-face vote but the NLRB representatives chose postal voting, with nearly 53,000 new Covid-19 cases since the beginning of the month.