Labor movement aims at Amazon as a foothold in the south

The South has never been hospitable to organized work. But that may be changing, with a major test in Alabama, where thousands of workers on an Amazon campus are deciding whether to form a union.

Work organizers and advocates see the David and Goliath struggle as a potential turning point in the region, with a long history of undervalued work and entrenched hostility to collective bargaining rights. A victory could have economic and political repercussions for the labor movement and its Democratic Party allies, who want a stronger position in the South, amid decades of shrinking national union power.

“This election transcends this one place of work. This transcends even this powerful company, ”said Stuart Appelbaum, national president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “If workers in Amazon, Alabama, in the middle of the pandemic, can organize themselves, it means that workers anywhere can organize.”

The mere presence of a national union figure like Appelbaum in Alabama highlights what is at stake.

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Voting in the Amazon takes place at a time when Democrats and Republicans are fighting fiercely for voters of the working class. Over the decades, many white workers have turned to Republicans, attracted in part by cultural identity and an anti-establishment stance. This left Democrats looking to refine their economic argument, arguing that their party is the one that fights for higher wages, better working conditions and more affordable health care.

A victory in Bessemer, where the vast majority of the workforce is black, would have additional significance as a launching pad for a new political organization in the South, where Democrats want to take advantage of recent successes.

This could be decisive on newfound battlegrounds like Georgia, which Biden pulled into the party’s presidential column for the first time since 1992 and where Democrats won two Senate contests. It can be a foundation in states dominated by the Republican Party, such as Alabama and Mississippi. And any domino effect nationally could boost Democrats in former industrial states in the Rust Belt, such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Republicans have gained ground.

Biden drew applause from labor leaders with a recent video speech defending the right to organize through “free and fair elections”, although he did not directly mention the campaign in the Amazon.

The postal vote of nearly 6,000 workers is the largest union campaign ever carried out on Amazon, one of the richest companies in the world. The election, which runs through March, is also among the largest individual organizing efforts in southern history. It follows a series of failed organizational votes at automakers – Nissan in Mississippi in 2017, Volkswagen in Tennessee in 2019, among others – that have flocked to the region over the past three decades.

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“Wages in this region have decreased since the time of slavery,” said historian Keri Leigh Merritt, because “we have always had these lower classes competing with different races that white elites”, from the South and elsewhere, “have been able to play with each other. other. “

The result, said Merritt, is that almost all workers are paid “below the national market”.

The 2019 average family income in the U.S. was $ 62,843, according to data from the Census Bureau. In Bessemer, part of an industrialized area outside Birmingham that was once teeming with steelmakers, that figure was $ 32,301.

“We just want what we owe,” said Kevin Jackson, a distribution center worker.

Jackson, who is black, compared Amazon’s salaries, which start at $ 15 an hour, about double the minimum wage, with the fortune of the company’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, whose net worth amounts to hundreds of billions.

“When you kick a dog so many times, it will bite,” said Jackson. “We are biting back.”

The union’s elections coincide with Biden and Democrats in Congress who defend the “PRO Law”, legislation that would revise labor legislation to make the organization easier. The bill represents the most significant change in labor law since the New Deal era and follows a decades-long drop in union membership. In 1970, almost a third of the US workforce was unionized. In 2020, that number was 10.8%.

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The House passed the reform on Tuesday in a vote for much of the party, but faces an almost certain defeat in the 50-50 Senate, where major bills require at least 10 Republican votes to avoid an obstruction.

Even without this law, union leaders say that the result of the Amazon can be a stepping stone for the organization of work across the country. Regionally, a victory would provide a roadmap for a southern workforce unaccustomed to unions as a routine part of the economy.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, said Alabama workers are “inspirational” and added that her union and others are watching closely as they reflect on the expansion.

The deficit of organized labor in the South is striking: all 11 states of the former Confederation have so-called “right to work” laws, which allow unionized workers to choose not to pay union dues, even while maintaining benefits and the protection of employment negotiated by the Union. This weakens the unions, reducing their members and their bargaining capacity. Most southern states also prohibit public officials from collective bargaining.

The entire region is lagging behind in national union membership when measured as a percentage of the workforce. For example, United Auto Workers has more than 400,000 members, but only 12,000 in the southern states, despite the region’s abundance of internationally owned car factories and associated suppliers.

Merritt, an expert on southern labor policy, has drawn a straight line from the pre-Civil War economy to the current climate.

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Before the abolition of slavery, she said, white workers were threatened – explicitly or implicitly – to be replaced by slaves, depriving them of any influence with employers. After emancipation, free black workers and poor white workers had to compete in a devastated agricultural economy that was struggling to rebuild itself from the war. Eventually, northern industrialists entered the southern markets, joining the southern white land barons to take advantage of cheap labor in sectors such as textiles, steel and mining.

The trend continued as the regional economy expanded with chemical factories and oil refineries in Texas and Louisiana, shipbuilding along the coast and, eventually, car factories from Texas to the Carolinas.

Generations of elected officials from the south – Democrats and Republicans – have refined their proposals for outside firms.

“They always offered great tax incentives and basically sold people moving their factories to the South, saying, look, we can offer very low labor prices and labor laws that will always favor employers,” said Merritt.

Some observers say that the story should temper expectations.

“The political power of business and corporate leaders and anti-union power in the South are still very strong,” said Duke University professor Robert Korstad, an expert on the evolution of work in the South. “So, it’s not going to be easy.”

Amazon, which has a long history of defeat in organizing campaigns, held mandatory sessions to tell workers that a union would demand fees when they already received the type of compensation benefit, including health insurance, that the unions negotiate.

“We believe that we already offer everything that the unions are asking for and that we highly value direct communication with our employees,” said company spokeswoman Heather Knox.

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Amazon offered a similar message to the elected Democratic officials who joined Appelbaum on a recent visit. “Members of Congress are welcome to Bessemer,” read an electronic sign in the parking lot of the facility. “Please correspond to Amazon’s $ 15 / hour minimum wage.”

All members of the House had previously supported a $ 15 payroll.

Union organizers have their own plaque in Bessemer – one that indicates the broader political possibilities beyond the campaign. Outside the Amazon warehouse is a banner depicting voting rights defender Stacey Abrams – considered one of the first architects of Biden’s victory in Georgia – as the character “Rosie the Riveter”, an iconic symbol of workers’ power .

“We can do that,” says the banner.