Amazon Warehouse Workers Reject Union In Ballot

Efforts to unionise Amazon.com warehouse workers in Alabama were defeated on Friday by a more than 2-to-1 margin in a major win for the online retailer, but the union trying to organize workers was set to challenge the results, assailing the company's methods.

According to the latest unofficial tally, 1,798 voted against forming a union, with 738 ballots in favor. A simple majority is needed for victory, but both sides have the right to challenge the eligibility of ballots.

Counting concluded and would next focus on adding up challenges and voided ballots but the margin of victory may be too much to change the outcome.

Amazon shares rose 0.8 percent on Friday, adding to earlier gains.

Union leaders had hoped the election outside Birmingham would spark a new era of worker activism. Instead, it illustrated the continued challenges facing the labour movement, joining high-profile failures to start unions at auto and plane factories in the US South.

The US south has been an especially difficult region for unions to make inroads because many of those states, including Alabama, passed so-called right-to-work laws that curtail unions’ abilities to mandate dues and other measures.

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which is trying to organize the Amazon employees, said it is filing objections, charging that Amazon interfered with the right of its Bessemer, Alabama employees to vote.

It has the same legal options as Amazon: challenge the eligibility of individual voters or allege that coercive conduct tainted the election.

In the latter case, the dispute would play out before the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) and then likely in a federal appeals court.

Unionizing Amazon, the second-largest private employer in America, would be a start to reverse long-running declines in union membership, which fell to 11 percent of the eligible workforce in 2020 from 20 percent in 1983, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. (Reuters)