Hearing Officer Finds Company Rigged Alabama Contest with Help from Postal Service
Amazon cheated, regulators conclude.
In April, after the vote to unionize Amazon’s Bessemer Alabama
fulfillment center landed in Jeff Bezos’ favor, we told you that the richest
man on the planet and off the planet cheated workers out of a fair election.
This week, the federal hearing officer who examined the way that
pivotal union election was conducted determined that Amazon did, in fact,
violate labor law; a new election is needed.
That’s because in addition to its various acts of worker
intimidation and coercion, Amazon installed a dubious dropbox on company
property to collect votes that workers said they were afraid to use. The
National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] said the dropbox was prohibited. The dropbox was installed with the connivance of the U.S. Postal
Service and corrupt Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump-era
holdover.
“Amazon cheated, they got caught, and they are being held
accountable,” Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) President
Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement released Monday night.
The RWDSU had amassed more than 2,000 union cards from Amazon
employees at the Bessemer warehouse ahead of the election. But workers wound up
losing the election 1,798 to 738 when the NLRB tallied the votes on April 9.
More than 500 votes were contested and not included in the final tally.
Pro-union worker Linda Burns was prophetic at the timebwhen she said that she was not discouraged by the vote outcome and that, “This is the beginning.”
“Bezos,” she said, “you misled a lot of our people. We’re going
to fight for our rights. As human beings, not robots.”
Illegal Interference
The U.S. Postal Service installed this dropbox at the Alabama
Amazon warehouse for the union vote. (A More Perfect Union)
Appelbaum says the subsequent NLRB hearing yielded “compelling
evidence [about] how Amazon tried to illegally interfere with and intimidate
workers as they sought to exercise their right to form a union.”
“As President Biden reminded us earlier this year, the question
of whether or not to have a union is supposed to be the workers’ decision and
not the employer’s. Amazon’s behavior throughout the election process was
despicable,” Appelbaum said.
Earlier this year, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
resolved to organize Amazon workers coast to coast. Randy Korgan, IBT national
director for Amazon, told DCReport this
week’s NLRB recommendation in the Bessemer election “is just
further evidence of how Amazon, with its exploitative business model and
anti-union track record, continues to violate workers’ rights and drive down
industry standards.”
“The Teamsters stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers
in Bessemer who seek representation with RWDSU, and with any workers who
recognize the value of their work and join together to build collective power,”
he said.
Company to Resist
Amazon already announced its plans to try and stop any new
election.
“Our employees had a chance to be heard during a noisy time when
all types of voices were weighing into the national debate,” the company said
in a statement. “At the end of the day, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of a
direct connection with their managers and the company. Their voice should be
heard above all else, and we plan to appeal to ensure that happens.”
According to Bloomberg, “Amazon can be expected to wage as fierce a campaign as it did last
time holding mandatory ‘information sessions’ with employees,
where managers argue that a union won’t necessarily improve wages and
benefits.”
“Such direct appeals likely helped the company win handily last
time,” the news outlet said. Those captive audience meetings, however, are
exactly the kinds of shady practices that the PRO Act, now pending in Congress, seeks to
abolish in an effort to finally level the playing field between management and
workers.
The next step in the NLRB process involves both Amazon and the
RWDSU filing exceptions with the agency. The NLRB’s acting regional director is
expected to spend the next several weeks evaluating the hearing officer’s
recommendations before deciding on whether to order a new election.
Bezos recently launched himself to the edge of space on Blue
Origin. Critics called that frivolous.
Joe Maniscalco is a journalist and freelance writer
based in New York City. His work has appeared in a variety of news outlets
ranging from the NewYorkPost.com to Alternet.org. He's spent the last decade
covering workplace justice issues, the American Labor Movement and steadfastly
avoiding well-paid corporate media gigs.
