- About 6,000 Amazon workers in Alabama will vote to form a union, which would be the first union of the e-commerce giant in its history, according to an filed petition.
- Workers will receive their ballots on February 8 to vote in the mail-in election on the wishes of Amazon, which was pushing for a personal election.
- Amazon is vehemently opposed to organizing a union by its workers, with the company even hiring detectives for the spy agency Pinkerton to monitor efforts.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
About 6,000 Amazon warehouse employees in Alabama will vote to form the first union in the history of the e-commerce giant, according to a new petition filed with the National Labor Relations Board.
The petition, filed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, asks to represent the approximately 6,000 employees who work at Amazon’s facilities in Bessemer, Alabama. The workers, whether they want to be represented by the union or not, will receive their ballots on February 8. Voters must return their ballots by March 29. Ballot counting will take place on a videoconference platform and will begin on March 30.
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Eligibility extends to all types of positions, such as lead service associate and temporary depositary members, but excludes all truck drivers, professional employees and engineers, as well as others. Anyone who has worked an average of four hours a week for the past 13 weeks can vote.
According to the petition, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union requested in November to represent around 1,500 employees until Amazon asked this pool to expand and cover 6,000 employees.
In a statement to Insider, Amazon spokeswoman Heather Knox said the company works “a lot to support our teams and more than 90% of associates on our website Bessemer say they would recommend Amazon as a good place to work for.” your friends. We don’t believe RDWSU represents the majority of our employees’ opinions. Our employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs available everywhere we hire, and we encourage anyone to compare our total compensation package, health and working environment benefits with any other company with similar jobs. “
The representatives of the BAmazon Union did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.
—BAmazonUnion (@BAmazonUnion) January 15, 2021
Employees will vote by post, which Amazon fought against, pressing instead for a personal vote held in a parking lot adjacent to the facility, the petition noted. Amazon also wanted to use the company’s distance assistant and other proprietary equipment to conduct the election, which the petitioner said could cause a conflict of interest.
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The petition signals the start of a major labor battle. As the Washington Post notes, union voting usually involves dozens or hundreds of workers – this involves almost 6,000.
Amazon has historically been a strong opponent of unionizing its workers. The company listed, but quickly removed, a job vacancy in 2020 for an analyst who would monitor the employee’s efforts to organize.
A September Motherboard report found that Amazon was using a tool to monitor dozens of public and private social media groups to find drivers who were organizing strikes or protests. And in November, reports emerged that Amazon had hired detectives for the infamous spy agency Pinkerton to monitor the organizing efforts of European workers’ unions.