Joe Biden effectively endorsed continuous unionization efforts at an Amazon facility in Alabama and warned the e-commerce giant that its efforts to shut down the unit must involve “no intimidation, no coercion, no threat, no anti-union propaganda”.
Amazon workers have long complained about everything from strenuous hours and quotas in exchange for low compensation for surprising levels of injuries in the warehouse, dangerous conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, dystopian workplace surveillance, skimming driver tip, and retaliatory treatment of particularly outspoken employees. Naturally, Amazon resisted the work of the organizers of the work to convince almost 6,000 employees at a distribution center in the black-majority city of Bessemer, Alabama, to vote in favor of joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, and to organize efforts more generally – using techniques generally common in corporate America, but which are being implemented with particular zeal by the titan of e-commerce.
Amazon bombed workers with anti-union propaganda, I texted them pro-management, published job advertisements for experts in fighting unions, and forced them to attend mandatory meetings. In Alabama, Amazon executives sought to have the post of the National Labor Relations Boardpone a union vote, as well as tried to force the vote to happen in person during the coronavirus pandemic. Labor Organizers told the media what workers on the premises have been captive hearings for mandatory anti-union meetings and managers have tried to intimidate workers who have challenged the information given in these shooting sessions your work badges. The election, however, follows on Amazon terms tried to prevent, conducted by means of postal ballots that will be counted on March 30. The stakes are high: if workers successfully form Amazon’s first union in Alabama, it is likely to unleash a gigantic wave of union campaigns in other workplaces. A recent national survey shared with Gizmodo showed that the vast majority of the hundreds of Amazon drivers interviewed supported the formation of their own unions.
In a video message posted on Twitter about “workers in Alabama” on Sunday, Biden reiterated his support for the unions and said he would keep his “promise” to support the organization’s efforts. He did not mention the name of Amazon, although there was no doubt which employer he was calling.
“You should all remember that the National Labor Relations Act not only said that unions can exist, but that we should encourage them,” said Biden. “Let me be very clear: it is not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union. But let me be even clearer: it is not up to an employer to decide that either. “
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“The choice to join a union is up to the workers – period. Full stop,Biden continued. “Today and in the coming days and weeks, workers in Alabama and across the United States are voting on whether to organize a union at their workplace. This is vitally important, a vitally important choice as the United States struggles with the deadly pandemic, the economic crisis and the calculation of race – which reveals the profound disparities that still exist in our country. “
“And there should be no intimidation, coercion, threats, anti-union propaganda,” concluded Biden. “No supervisor should confront employees about their union preferences … Each worker must have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice. And it is your right, not that of an employer, it is your right. No employer can take this away immediately. “
THE New York Times wrote it is “unusual” for presidents to weigh in on specific labor disputes (a feeling that can only go in one direction, given the last administration relentlessly hostile attitude towards the labor movement and attempts to bust federal union) The Washington Post wrote that Biden’s rebuttal it’s impressive” because Amazon’s senior vice president of global affairs, crybaby corporate spokesperson Jay Carney, served as press secretary for the White House during the administration of Barack Obama and Biden. No doubt Carney was brought in under the expectation that his tenure in the executive branch could help the company shine the wheels on D.Ç.
Faiz Shakir, a former aide to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, is the founder of More Perfect Union, one of many labor advocacy groups who urged Biden to speak up for Alabama’s union effort. Shakir told the Post that Biden’s statement was the biggest demonstration of support for unionization coming from the White House in many years.
“It has been decades since we received this aggressive and positive statement from a president of the United States on behalf of the workers,” said Shakir. “It is monumental that you have a president sending a message to workers across the country that, if you take the courageous step to start unionizing, you will have allies in the government, the NLRB and the Department of Labor. Means a lot.”
“It’s almost unprecedented in American history,” Erik Loomis, a historian of work at the University of Rhode Island, told the Post. “We have a feeling that previous presidents in the mid-20th century were openly pro-union, but that was not really the case. Until [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] he never went out and told workers directly to support a union. “
While Biden’s support for the Amazon effort is a major development, undoing the Trump-era damage to the labor movement and institutions like the NLRB is not going to happen on a timeline anywhere near night. The NLRB was controlled by Trump nominees who were eagerly used their power to launch radical attacks on workers’ rights, their organizational capacity and rules that hold employers accountable.
The new acting general council of the Biden administration at the NLRB, Peter Sung Ohr, reversed several Trump era directives. But Biden has yet to act on on major labor law reforms such as the proposed Law on Protection of the Right to Organize, which would give more strength to the NLRB’s regulatory authority, in addition to preventing employers from compelling unions to negotiate deadlocks and implement pro-management contracts.