Amazon.com Inc. is trying to postpone a union vote on a warehouse in Alabama and is asking federal labor authorities to reconsider the decision to allow postal voting due to the pandemic.
On Thursday, the company filed an appeal against a decision by the National Council for Labor Relations, which is allowing a matching process due to the risks of Covid-19, rather than the personal elections that are typical of such union votes.
The ballots are to be mailed to about 6,000 workers associated with their facilities in Bessemer, Ala. On February 8. In its petition, Amazon said the board’s decision was flawed in part because it did not properly define an outbreak, among other objections.
Workers seek representation from the Retail, Wholesale and Warehouses Union. Most of the votes cast would have to choose unionization to obtain representation. Hourly Amazon workers never formed or joined a union in the United States
A spokeswoman for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union declined to comment. Amazon declined to comment on its appeal, but said it believed the best approach to an election would be to conduct it in person, saying it “provided the NLRB with a safe, confidential and convenient proposal for members to vote on the spot, which is the best interest of all parties – associated convenience, faithfulness of vote and punctual vote counting. “