BAmazon: union yes!

The union organizing drive at Amazon’s huge facility in Bessemer, Alabama, has attracted a great deal of attention. The international press has carried many articles about it. President Biden even intervened with a special video. There have been at least fifty support demonstrations across the country. Clearly, this is no routine organizing drive.

The reason why Bessemer has captured national attention is clear. Amazon former CEO Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $195 billion. Amazon profits have soared due to the surge in home delivery during the pandemic. The Amazon delivery van is now as common a sight as the famous brown UPS package car. If one wants a symbol of wealth and inequality in this country today, Jeff Bezos and Amazon are it. Their fulfillment centers are known as high pressure sweatshops. So, the union organizing drive is seen as a working class David taking on a plutocratic Goliath.

Background

The purpose of this article is to look at the background to this drama. The basic facts are straightforward enough. There are 5,805 workers eligible to vote at the huge Amazon BHM1 plant in Bessemer, just outside of Birmingham, Alabama. BHM1 opened in May, 2020. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) began an organizing drive at the plant after Darryl Richardson, a “picker” in the plant, contacted them. The RWDSU is well known in the area as it organizes workers at many of the local poultry plants. The RWDSU collected about 3,000 signature cards for the election. The National Labor Relations Board, therefore, has organized a mail-in election with the voting period running from February 8 until March 29. The union will need a simple majority of votes cast to win. If the union wins the election, it will then bargain for a first contract.

The reasons why the workers want a union are not surprising. Covid was obviously a major issue. Lack of proper safety procedures has been a worker concern at Amazon facilities nationally. At Bessemer alone, 218 people tested positive for Covid between just December 24 and January 7.

The pace of work is fierce. A “picker’s” job is to pick an item, every 12 seconds, from a metal bin and place it on the box for the appropriate conveyor belt. A worker’s every movement is monitored. Too long in the bathroom or taking a drink of water can lead to discipline for TOT, “time off task”. Wages, which begin at $15.30 an hour, don’t compensate for this stress and exhaustion.

Bessemer

We should look at the town of Bessemer in order to fully understand the drive. Bessemer is a majority African American city. In the warehouse, 85% of the workers are Black. Organizers have spoken of the inspiration they got from last summer’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations.

Bessemer-also-has a long union history. The steel workers built a strong union in the town’s famous mills. This heritage still has some influence.

However, this is not going to be an easy nut for the union to crack. The last three big union organizing drives in the South,Nissan in Mississippi, Boeing in South Carolina and Volkswagen in Tennessee, all failed. The last attempt to unionize an Amazon facility was in Delaware in 2014. This also failed. There are no unionized Amazon facilities in this country at the moment.

This, then, is the context for the RWDSU drive. Of course, the Covid pandemic complicates things. The traditional tools of union organizers- rallies, social events and home visits- are out.

The union has mobilized a strong team of union poultry workers, from nearby plants, to campaign outside the plant. The Amazon workers can relate to these workers’ similar lives and experiences. The union has another thing going for it. Faurecia Automotive in nearby Cottonwood was organized by the UAW. This gave workers in the area a feel of how much better conditions are in a unionized plant. This gave hope and a perspective to workers at Amazon.

Management

It was entirely predictable that management would oppose the organizing drive. The company hired the Philadelphia anti-union firm of Morgan Lewis. The employers began all the traditional tactics that employers use in organizing drives: mandatory meetings, constant informal cajoling and threats, local publicity, etc. However, some of the union busting tactics used here have been unusual.

Management has setup a well-designed, but vapid and flat, website called #doitwithoutdues. For some bizarre reason, they have decided the cartoon image of a perpetually dancing dog who is DJing was going to be their symbol or mascot!
Amazon was insisting on in-person voting despite the pandemic. They were obviously hoping to push down turn-out. The NLRB ruled that there should be a mail-in ballot. As the Board was discussing this, Amazon made an extraordinary attempt to sweeten the pot. They proposed that if the vote was held in person, they would then pick up the tab for the NLRB staff’s hotel and meals. This blatant attempt to bribe and entice the Board is extraordinary. It would be as if a criminal lawyer took the jury out for a steak dinner and a night on the town the night before deliberations began.
As mentioned before, campaigning outside the plant gates is an important part of the union’s work. Union canvassers would talk with workers stopped in their cars at the red light near the BHM1 entrance. Management thought that this was giving the union a chance to win over more workers. So, they applied to the City of Bessemer to change the timing on the lights, so they would be less on red and more on green.
Management is texting workers with anti-union messages five times per day.
Not only is the facility plastered with anti-union messages, they are even put up in the bathrooms including inside stall doors.

Biden

Management is clearly going all out to defeat the union. In response, the RWDSU has mounted a major publicity campaign. Perhaps the highpoint of this is the video made by President Biden. While Biden does not actually endorse the union and call for a yes vote, the video is interesting.

It is a general statement on the value of unions. It makes an explicit reference to Alabama and to opposing management intervention in union recognition elections. While it is carefully worded not to be an explicit endorsement of the union at Amazon, it will be seen as basically just that.

Now, Biden is not a friend of the workers movement, and there are obviously some tactical maneuvering and backroom deals taking place. They are what led to this video. It is not a heart- felt conversion to the side of the working class. However, it is still extraordinary for a sitting President to make a positive appeal in a union recognition election. FDR and the Wagner Act may well be the last time that something like this occurred.

Full support

Given this swirl of events, it would be foolhardy to make any predictions about the outcome of the election. What we can do is make our position completely clear: full and total support for the union at BAmazon!