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New York (AFP) – Bad start in Alabama, still possible in New York: the counting of the votes on unionization in two American warehouses of Amazon began Thursday, but the final results are not yet known.
If the “yes” wins in one of the two logistics sites, it would be a first in the United States for the e-commerce giant since the company was founded in 1994.
In Staten Island, a district of New York where the employees of the JFK8 warehouse voted in person, the “yes” led Thursday evening with 1,518 ballots once morest 1,154 for the “no”. The count will be “completed tomorrow”, said an official.
The simple fact that a vote took place “is already historic,” Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the small group of current and former Amazon employees who put several months to collect the signatures of at least 30% of the employees of the warehouse in order to be able to organize a vote.
Leaving the building quickly between two rounds of ballot counts, he said he was “not surprised” that the “yes” is leading for the moment.
“Movement”
In Bessemer (Alabama), on the other hand, the national distribution union that employees wanted to join seemed set for a possible second contested defeat, following that of a year ago, which occurred at the end of a very media campaign followed until at the top of the state.
Thursday evening, the “no” led with 993 ballots, once morest 875 “yes”, but there remained 416 so-called “disputed” ballots, which will decide the result. In the coming weeks, a hearing must decide whether these bulletins should be opened and taken into account or not. Then there might be other legal remedies.
This second vote had been ordered by the United States Labor Rights Agency (NLRB), which found that Amazon had broken the rules during the first attempt last year in Bessemer.
The RWDSU union had indeed accused the group of “intimidation and interference”, and the NLRB had ruled that several objections were admissible.
Whatever happens, Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the RWDSU, was pleased that Bessemer had launched a “movement” last year, evoking other Amazon warehouses including that of Staten Island, but also Starbucks .
The employees of two of these cafes voted in December for the creation of a union, a first in establishments directly managed by the chain in the United States. And employees of more than 150 Starbucks have since requested the organization of a ballot.
Amazon, one of the largest employers in the United States and a multinational that earned more than $30 billion in 2021, has so far managed to fend off attempts by workers to consolidate in the country.
But attempts are increasing. On the other side of the street from the JFK8 warehouse, some 1,500 employees of the sorting center called LDJ5 are called upon to vote for or once morest the creation of another ALU branch from April 25 to 29.
“They vote by resigning”
In Bessemer as in Staten Island, the employees were summoned by their superiors to several mandatory meetings in the run-up to the ballot to present to them the disadvantages of a union.
Officially, the company says it respects its workers’ rights to unionize but prefers to have a direct relationship with them. She did not react immediately to a request from AFP.
“It’s time for Jeff Bezos to come down to earth and address the very real issues his employees face every day in his warehouses across the country,” Stuart Appelbaum said at a press conference. Thursday, thus referring to the space adventures of the billionaire who founded Amazon.
He repeated that the Seattle group was ready to use its “unlimited resources to prevent the creation of unions at any cost”.
In all, for this second ballot by mail, 2,284 people voted out of 6,153 eligible employees, a lower turnout than a year ago.
But “Amazon has a staff turnover rate of 150% per year,” said Stuart Appelbaum, citing a figure from a New York Times survey.
“Thousands of people who worked for Amazon in January, and were eligible to vote, left or were fired in March,” he continued to explain the low turnout. “They are tired of working in dangerous conditions. Thousands of Amazon employees are voting by resigning.”
© 2022 AFP
