Energised by protests at Amazon's US
warehouses and a more labor-friendly administration assuming office, unions are
campaigning at the world's largest online retailer to see if its warehouse or
grocery workers would like to join their ranks.
A major test is expected early next year
when workers at one warehouse decide whether to unionise. The company has not
faced a union election in the United States since 2014, and a "yes"
vote would be the first ever for a US Amazon facility.
Amazon, America's second-biggest private
employer behind Walmart, has told workers it already offers the pay and
benefits unions promise, and it has trained managers to spot organising
activity. Its operation in France offers a picture of what the company would avoid:
strong unions there precipitated a month-long closure of its warehouses this
year.
The upcoming vote is for associates in
Amazon's fulfillment centre in Bessemer, Alabama; they will weigh whether to
join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The organising
committee has launched a social media campaign, shared union authorisation
cards and collected enough to hold the election.
This week and last, the RWDSU and Amazon
negotiated the election terms. By Tuesday they agreed to have seasonal workers
in the bargaining unit, as well as process assistants, whose inclusion the
union had questioned for their supervisory authority, according to the election
hearings presided by a government labour board. That board will set the
election date.
The larger the bargaining unit's size - now
expected to be over 5,700 - the more votes the union needs to win.
In a statement, Amazon said, "We don't
believe this group represents the majority of our employees' views. Our
employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs
available everywhere we hire." Average pay at the Bessemer facility is
$15.30 per hour, and jobs come with health and retirement benefits, it said.
Precedent shows the RWDSU faces an uphill
battle. Union membership has fallen to 10 percent of the eligible workforce in
2019 from 20 percent in 1983, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in
January.
Employees at the Alabama facility did not
answer requests for an interview.
Vote 'would pass'
Amazon workers are organising elsewhere,
too. Alexander Collias, a cashier for Amazon's subsidiary Whole Foods, said he
has been participating in walkouts because the pandemic has put workers' health
at risk and he claims management has brushed off others concerns.
"We're definitely extremely
pro-union," he said of his Whole Foods store in Portland. "If we had
a vote today, I think it would pass."
Courtenay Brown, a process assistant at an
Amazon warehouse in New Jersey, said work has increased 10-fold in her building
during the pandemic, and colleagues have fallen ill. So she's started
circulating work-related petitions via Facebook.
"We need to be able to have a
voice," said Brown, 30, adding she was neutral about the impact a union
could have at her facility.
Reuters was introduced to both Brown and
Collias via pro-labor groups campaigning at Amazon. One of them was Whole
Worker, a group of current and former Whole Foods staff looking to organise the
grocery chain.
Its strategy is to focus outreach and
actions at the half dozen Whole Foods stores, including in Portland and
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, where it already has secured majority staff support, said
Katie Doan, one of the group's directors.
"We'd rather focus on little stores
here and there who are for sure going to fully unionise, rather than fail
nationally," said Doan, who worked for Whole Foods in California until
earlier this year.
Likewise, representatives of the United
Food and Commercial Workers International have reached out to discuss
unionisation, hazard pay and other issues with Whole Foods staff, according to
interviews and copies of the communication shared with Reuters.
Seattle-area unions are meeting with Amazon
tech workers, too, their coalition leader said. One local is helping corporate
whistleblowers whom Amazon fired contest their termination as a violation of US
labour law, according to a public record obtained by Reuters. Amazon said it
supports workers' right to criticise the company, but the employees in question
violated internal policies.
Labour advocates say the administration of
President Joe Biden is poised to help with union efforts, making the US
National Labor Relations Board less beholden to corporate interests and
supporting the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.
That bill passed the US House in February
and would add penalties for companies that hinder organising; Senate approval
is far from guaranteed. Its passage would help level the playing field for
workers, said Stuart Appelbaum, RWDSU president whose Mid-South Council is
behind the Alabama union drive.
"With a change in administration,
Amazon workers are going to have a much better chance of coming together,"
he said.
© Reuters