Skip to main content

As Amazon Alabama Union Vote Wraps Up, Eyes Turn to Other Amazon Unionization Efforts

 

Today, voting is to wrap up at the Bessemer, Alabama Amazon location where workers are attempting to unionize.  While the outcome of the union election will not be immediately know, attention has already turned to potential unionization at other Amazon locations.

Readers will recall that Amazon had previously opposed a mail in vote, instead requesting  the election be delayed until it was safe to hold in person.  After Amazon’s efforts to stop the mail in vote failed, the seven week mail in election got underway.  While many politicians have decided to wade into the fray and voice their support (or opposition) to the election, the relative absence of President Joe Biden has taken many by surprise.  Given his vocal support for unions during the previous election, many thought he would lend his voice to the unionization efforts at the Alabama location.  (After all, a unionization of this Amazon fulfillment center would be a big step toward cutting into the company’s successful efforts to beat back unionization in the U.S.).

With that being said, workers at a few other Amazon locations in Baltimore, New Orleans, and Southern California, have reportedly begun to explore a potential unionization.  Granted, rumblings and discussions about unionizing does not mean unionization efforts would be successful.  However, I would expect that should the Alabama location unionize (or even come close to unionizing), workers at other Amazon locations would become emboldened to try their hand at forming a union.  This is a matter worth keeping an eye on going forward.


For additional information:  https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-amazon-union-alabama-20210322-7mut7ccizjhaxgb4nzr57gav4y-story.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more