To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
April 24, 2021
by Tim Hall, Detroit Workers' Voice
The attempt of the Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, to gain recognition for a union at the giant Amazon warehouse there has been defeated. The vote was roughly two to one against the union, 1,798 to 738, as announced on April 9. This was the official vote, accepted by the National Labor Relations Board, which conducted the election. While 3,117 workers voted, some 581 votes were challenged, mainly by management, and discarded. Even if they had all been pro-union votes, they would not have been enough to give the union victory. However, in the legal process of counting the votes management was able to see the names of the voters and the dates of their mailing, which were on the outer envelope (but not the direction of their vote, which was in a blank, inner envelope). No doubt Amazon management, renowned for its anti-union skills, had lists of many pro-union workers and these were the ones they challenged. Also, the union says that the early votes in February were largely anti-union, while the pro-union votes surged later, and Amazon challenged votes correspondingly. So this means that the pro-union vote was much higher than 738 and that the union was defeated by a significantly smaller margin than 2 to 1. This means there is a significant pro-union base in the facility (the union claims 1,100) and bodes well for future organizing efforts.
So despite the disappointment of the loss, this is one takeaway: there is a serious pro-union section of the workforce, probably not far below 50 per cent. These workers have gained experience and, according to organizers, do not see this defeat as final.
But why were the workers defeated?
There were many reasons. Unionization campaigns face many obstacles and are rarely successful at first try.
Turnover at the plant is extremely high. Between January and March
of this year the union says 25% of the workforce turned over. This is a
big hurdle to overcome. If workers are coming and going it is much
harder to build up a fighting core of pro-union people.
Turnover issues combined with timing difficulties to make the hurdle bigger. Enthusiastic workers approached the union in the summer and fall. The plant had opened in March, which meant that these workers had had little time to work together and build up ties and solidarity. Still, there was a rush of workers signing union cards. Then Amazon did massive hiring for the Christmas season. Organizers were never given employee lists until January, one month before voting. The organizers had to overcome the difficulties caused by a flood of new workers and by discovering that by February the plant had come to have 5,800 workers. Yet the organizers were still able to get cards signed for a majority of these. The organizers considered postponing the election, but they say the workers insisted on going ahead. The union says it will be reassessing that decision.
One has to remember that these are young workers who have little or no experience with unions or worker-oriented struggle. This is not the 1930s, where union struggle was well-known and harsh battles had been won and (mostly) lost. To have or not have a union reportedly appeared to many workers as simply a matter of purchasing a commodity, judged mostly in dollar terms. The fact that most of the workers are Black and that the union has some ties to the Black Lives Matter movement was a positive, but Amazon had not committed any obvious, outrageous racial crime that made it a target in that respect, so that may not have been the advantage it appeared to be.
The union decided not to hold home visits due to COVID dangers. This may have been a factor, but the organizers say they made intensive contact efforts on individual and mini-group bases and via every variety of digital media. In addition, a committee of plant workers was constituted, which met regularly and, according to organizers, numbered in the dozens and made many major decisions.
There was Amazon’s brutal and all-encompassing anti-union propaganda and scare tactics. These are quite effective and present a major obstacle to union organizing. Amazon performed brutally as expected, but the organizers say that, with over 1,000 voting for the union at this point, this obstacle should be overcome, given that the 1,000 were won under conditions of rush and turmoil.
There is one aspect, speaking from afar, that seems to have been a problem with the union's approach.
They had and have a core of active supporters in the facility, but
apparently the organizers never led them to issue a series of demands
that the union would fight for. Amazon continually pointed to its $15
an hour wage and benefits as allegedly meaning there was no need for a
union. The union could not promise to automatically bring more, but
they should have raised a series of demands as targets and declared
this is what you need a union for, to fight for these and other things.
Things like (and again speaking from a distance) a $20 an hour wage, a
slowdown of production speed, elimination of surveillance and
accessible bathrooms. This would have been a clear answer to workers
who said they could not see any advantage in a union. There could be no
actual promise of these gains, but they could have been raised as
targets. Then the union could have answered the objection management
constantly raised, that the workers would have to pay dues, by saying
yes you will, and this is what we can gain if we fight as a union!
Instead, the union sadly told the workers they would not have to pay
dues if the union got in, since the right to work law would not require
it.
A core group, raising such demands, could have promoted small, limited struggles in the facility and shown the workers what a union could be. Apparently members of the committee did stand up to Amazon supervision in the mandatory anti-union meetings that it held. That was good but more might have been possible. A rally or a march outside the facility could have been held.
As for the solidarity from outsiders, ranging from Bessemer and Birmingham community and church groups to leftists to BLM to other unions to Danny Glover to Joe Biden, the union solicited it and claims it had an inspiring effect on the workers.
According to Josh Brewer, lead organizer, the workers are enthusiastic to continue the struggle. They held a rally after the loss and declared that the fight was not over.
At a Chicago Amazon warehouse recently, just as the Bessemer workers were losing the election, the workers waged a small wildcat strike. Perhaps actions like this can help build cores of active workers at Amazon facilities to carry on a struggle. There are reports of various kinds of organizing activities from Amazon facilities in Italy, France and elsewhere in the US.
And while the loss at Bessemer is discouraging, at the same time it has placed before the workers around this country the task of getting themselves organized. It raises this task especially for the workers of the South. Within days of the Amazon election results, Alabama coal miners, from mines not far from Bessemer, walked out on strike. Soon they rejected the company’s first contract offer, and they continue their strike today. This, too, cannot help but encourage the Bessemer Amazon workers with the idea of a union of struggle. <>
Back to main
page,
how to order CV,
write us!