Amazon and trade unions
Warehouse workers of Amazon, the largest American e-commerce retailer with 750,000 employees, have organized for workplace improvements in light of the company's scrutinized labor practices and stance against unions. Worker actions have included work stoppages, and have won concessions including increased pay, safety precautions, and time off. There are unionized Amazon workers in the United States, Italy and Japan with further unionization activity elsewhere in Europe.
In April 2022, Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York City voted in favor of a union, becoming Amazon's first NLRB-recognized unionized workplace in the United States.
Background
As the second-largest American employer and the largest American e-commerce retailer with over one million workers and rapidly expanding, Amazon's warehouse labor practices have been subject to continued scrutiny, including reporting on work conditions, rising injury rates, worker surveillance, and efforts to block unionization. In the late 2010s, Amazon began to address warehouse wages and training opportunities. Despite increasing its minimum wage to $15/hour, providing healthcare benefits and COVID-19 testing, labor advocates and government officials have criticized Amazon's warehouse working conditions. While unions are common among Amazon warehouse workers in Europe, few of Amazon's American workers are unionized. Amazon has actively opposed unionization in the United States, having stated a preference to resolve issues with employees directly, asserting that unions would impede the company's innovation. Prior to the 2020 Bessemer union drive, Amazon had not faced a major union vote in the United States since Delaware in 2014.United States
On April 1, 2022, the National Labor Relations Board announced that Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York City voted to approve the union. 2,654 voted in favor of a union while 2,131 voted against a union. As of April 2022, the JFK8 warehouse is currently Amazon's only unionized workplace in the United States.On December 22, 2021, Amazon agreed in a settlement with the NLRB to allow more easily the 750,000 employees in the US to organize including allowing workers to be on property for longer than 15 minutes before and after their shifts for union organizing purposes. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 75 complaints have been lodged against Amazon according to the NLRB.
In 2000, the Communications Workers of America and the United Food and Commercial Workers launched unionization drives for Amazon workers after a series of layoffs and a significant drop in employee stock options. In response, the company set up a section on its internal website advising managers on how to spot workers attempting to organize and how to convince them not to. A year later, 850 employees in Seattle were laid off by Amazon after a unionization drive. The Washington Alliance of Technology Workers accused the company of violating union laws and claimed that Amazon managers subjected them to intimidation and heavy propaganda. Amazon denied any connection between the unionization effort and the layoffs.
In 2018, the thousand plus Muslim and Somali migrant workforce at the Shakopee, Minnesota warehouse negotiated with Amazon for a lighter workload during the Ramadan fast. They were supported by the Awood Center, a worker center, backed by Service Employee International Union. It is the first time workers negotiated with Amazon.
When other businesses shut down during COVID-19 pandemic safety measures, the welfare and salary of workers ensuring the delivery of goods, including Amazon's labor, received renewed attention. Amazon workers, amid increased demand, advocated for pay increases and safety measures through work stoppage including walkouts and not appearing for work. Amazon increased pay for warehouse, transportation, delivery, and store workers and increased paid time off. Some workers described these concessions as a minimum for convincing employees to risk working during the pandemic. Amazon responded to worker activism by increasing anti-union propaganda, firing organizers, hiring Pinkertons, and surveilling its workers. In December 2020, the National Labor Relations Board found merit to a complaint that a Staten Island warehouse worker's firing was an illegal retaliation for organizing for pandemic safety procedure.
International Association of Machinists
Technical Amazon workers held the company's first unionization vote in the United States in January 2014, which failed 21 to 6. The NLRB held the vote following a December petition from International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers on behalf of 30 Amazon warehouse maintenance and repair workers in Middletown, Delaware.In 2016, Amazon stopped a unionization drive in Chester, Virginia. Organizers were derided as "a cancer" to the workplace and some human resources officials were accused of tracking employee positions on the drive. The union filed a complaint and Amazon settled with the National Labor Relations Board, agreeing to post notices but not having to concede legal violations or fines. Most of the union supporters left.
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union
Workers have leaked Amazon manager training videos about discouraging labor organization. In response to changes following Amazon's 2017 acquisition of grocery Whole Foods, workers began to organize as "Whole Worker".The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union began to organize 2,500 workers from Amazon's Staten Island warehouse in December 2018, but this did not result in a union vote.
Amazon opened a fulfillment warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, in March 2020. Within several months, Jennifer Bates, a warehouse worker at the facility, began leading workers in organizing to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Bessemer warehouse workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board in November to hold a unionization vote. The bargaining unit was originally proposed as 1,500 full-time and part-time employees. The workers, who are 85% Black, were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Amazon fought the effort hard. The company retained anti-union lawyers Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, the same firm Amazon used to successfully fight the Delaware warehouse unionization effort in 2014. The NLRB denied the company's request to delay initial hearings. Amazon recommended expanding the bargaining unit to 5,700 workers, and in a three-day NLRB hearing, lawyers from Amazon and the union established a broader bargaining unit membership than originally proposed, including seasonal hires and on-site medical, safety, and training workers. These were common tactics to discourage unionization, as a larger bargaining unit would dilute the union's penetration, having only organized a portion of the originally proposed, smaller unit. The union accepted the expanded unit to let the vote proceed sooner. During the drive, Amazon held mandatory meetings to hear the company's anti-union position and hung signage to discourage unionization.
The union drive received outward support from American politicians including U.S. Representatives Andy Levin, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Terri Sewell, Nikema Williams and US Senator Bernie Sanders, among many others. President Joe Biden alluded to the Alabama drive in a contemporaneous speech in support of unions. Biden gave stronger support than any president has given unions in decades, and labor activists said his advocacy would build his support in the working class, fighting off Republican inroads there. During the drive, the RWDSU reported interest from a thousand Amazon workers across the United States.
Mail-in ballots were distributed on February 8, 2021, after the NLRB rejected Amazon's attempt to delay the vote. Ballots were due by March 29 to be counted on April 8 and 9. The vast majority voted against unionization: 1,798 to 738. Of about 6,000 eligible employees, about 40% had participated. An additional 505 ballots were contested and left sealed, not being numerous enough in count to sway the final tally.
The RWDSU filed unfair labor practice charges against Amazon before the NLRB, alleging that the company interfered in employees' right to "vote in a free and fair election". Their largest contention concerned potential worker intimidation based on the location of a ballot box. Amazon originally proposed on-site ballot boxes, which the NLRB rejected as giving the appearance that Amazon controlled the vote and potentially intimidating workers to not oppose the company's position. Instead, the United States Postal Service approved a mailbox in the Bessemer warehouse's parking lot. Top-level management from Amazon and USPS were involved in the request, as Amazon strongly wanted employees to use this mailbox. After the USPS denied Amazon permission to add signage to the mailbox itself, Amazon built a tent around the mailbox to add its own signage calling attention to the mailbox as a place to vote. Amazon intended the tent to protect voter privacy, but the parent union held that the tent made the mail-in vote appear to be under company surveillance and control, rather than by the independent NLRB. Separately, a pro-union employee testified to having seen company security guards open the mailbox. Amazon said their access was limited to incoming mailboxes. RWDSU had known about the mailbox in advance of the vote and chose to proceed. Former NLRB chair Wilma B. Liebman said that the mailbox contention is "strong grounds for overturning the election". Several Postal Service employees testified that Amazon had not been provided keys to the mailbox.
In August 2021, an NLRB report on the Bessemer union drive found that "a free and fair election was impossible" and that "possibility that the employer's misconduct influenced some of these 2,000 eligible voters ."
On November 29, 2021, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ordered a re-vote. In March 2022, the warehouse voted for a second time, but the result was too close to call with more than 400 ballots being contested and 875-993 counted votes in favor of unionizing.