Amazon Workers’ union drive moves beyond Alabama
National Football League players were among the first to voice their support. Then came Stacey Abrams, the star who helped Democrats win Georgia in the 2020 election. Actor Danny Glover traveled to Bessemer, Ala., for a news conference last week, where he put forth the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s pro-union leanings in urging workers at Amazon’s warehouse there to organize. Tina Fey and Senator Bernie Sanders also joined in sharing their views.
Then on Sunday, President Biden issued a strong declaration of solidarity with the workers now voting on whether to form a union at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, without naming the company.
“Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union,” Mr. Biden said.
A unionizing campaign that had consistently gained attention for months has in recent days grew into a star-filled event to encourage the workers. While Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and its many pro-labor allies in the worlds of politics, sports, and Hollywood, the world’s dominant companies, an e-commerce behemoth that has warded off previous unionizing efforts at its U.S. facilities over its more than 25-year history is on the other side.
The union vote is turning into a referendum not just on working conditions at the Bessemer warehouse but also on the plight of low-wage employees and workers of color in particular due to the attention. Many of the employees in the Alabama warehouse are Black, a reality that the union organizers have emphasized in their campaign aiming to link the vote to the civil rights struggle in the South.
“This is an organizing campaign in the right-to-work South during the pandemic at one of the largest companies in the world,” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School. “The significance of a union victory there really couldn’t be overstated.”
The warehouse workers started voting on Feb. 8 through the mail and the ballots are due at the end of this month. A union can form if a majority of the votes cast favor such a move.
