Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted twice on whether to unionize, but the results were too close to decide beyond 2022.
Patrick Fallon/AFP via Getty
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Patrick Fallon/AFP via Getty
Amazon workers at an Alabama warehouse should be given a third chance to vote on unionizing, a federal labor judge has ruled.
However, a vote is not expected to take place immediately as the legal process drags on.
A Bessemer warehouse made history in 2021 as the site of the first union election by Amazon employees. However, the results were not historic. Workers voted against unionizing.
U.S. labor authorities later ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the vote, and workers cast their votes a second time in 2022. The results have been close for years, with either Amazon or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union dissenting. The two accused each other of violating labor laws.
In a small courtroom in Birmingham, the National Labor Relations Board’s administrative law judge spent months hearing testimony about the 2022 election from employees, Amazon executives and the agency’s own officials.
The Labor Relations Commission’s own investigators revealed the company’s aggressive and illegal anti-union campaign. The union called for a new vote. The company disputed how the government conducted the last vote and reiterated that workers “made their voices heard” when they rejected the union in the first election.
The initial vote against unionization came after federal labor officials ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the election, particularly by placing voting mailboxes in Amazon-branded tents in monitored parking lots. It was put on hold.
Now, Judge Michael Silverstein has ordered a third election, finding that Amazon illegally confiscated union materials from break rooms, among other things. But Mr. Silverstein also moved to dismiss several claims of unfair labor practices by Amazon.
Amazon says it plans to appeal the ruling.
“This decision is wrong on the facts and the law,” spokeswoman Mary Kate Paradis said in a statement. She criticized the labor board and union for “trying to force a third vote instead of accepting the facts and the will of the team members.”
The union has also challenged parts of the order, which will be subject to further legal review before new elections are held.
“We refuse [the judge’s] “We have made the decision not to provide the significant and meaningful relief that we have requested and that would be necessary for free and fair elections,” said RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum. stated in a statement. “Absent additional relief, there is no reason to expect a different outcome in a third election. Otherwise, Amazon will continue to repeat its past actions and the board will continue to order new elections.” I guess.”
Separately, Amazon continues to legally challenge its historic 2022 union victory at its Staten Island, New York, facility. The election created the country’s first, and so far only, unionized Amazon warehouse, but the company still refuses to start negotiations with its roughly 5,500 union members. laborer.
The independent Amazon Workers Union, a new and popular labor union in New York, has suffered financial and organizational deterioration after two years of conflict with Amazon. In June, the team voted to join the established International Brotherhood Teamsters.
Editor’s note: Amazon is one of NPR’s recent financial backers.
Stephan Bisaha in the Gulf Newsroom contributed to this report.
