The struggle now occurring in Bessemer, Alabama, to form a union at an Amazon warehouse could have a dramatic effect on the future of organized labor.
The pandemic made Amazon’s owner, Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world with a fortune approaching $200 billion.
But his workers are fighting for higher wages and decent working conditions.
A group of scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Andre Perry, have summarized the historic struggle:
Amazon’s disproportionately Black workforce has risked their lives during the pandemic, but the company has shared little of its astonishing profits with them. Last year, Amazon earned an additional $9.7 billion in profit—a staggering 84% increase compared to 2019. The company’s stock price has risen 82%, while founder Jeff Bezos has added $67.9 billion to his wealth—38 times the total hazard pay Amazon has paid its 1 million workers since March.
Equally informative and interesting is this account of the union organizing drive that appeared in a recent issue of The New Yorker by Charles Bethea.
The union started collecting authorization cards—they amassed more than three thousand—and the National Labor Relations Board decided that the union had enough support to hold a vote. Amazon insisted that the election should be held in person, but the board, which has been allowing mail-in balloting since the pandemic began, ruled against the company. A seven-week balloting period began last month and will end on March 29th. The effort has garnered international headlines, and a handful of the employees who have been among the most involved, like Richardson, have spoken to reporters from across the country. One of the employees I talked to, Jennifer Bates, is slated to speak at a congressional hearing on Wednesday. Late last month, Joe Biden unexpectedly offered a statement of clear, albeit nonspecific, support for the union push. “Unions lift up workers, both union and non-union, and especially Black and brown workers,” Biden said. Though he did not mention Amazon by name, he referred to “workers in Alabama and all across America.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Jeff Bezos does not like to share. If he had a agreed to pay to continue the hazard pay during Covid, workers would have been less likely to want a union to represent them. Bezos has even hired some Pinkerton detectives to spy on the workers and try to identify the “troublemakers.” Workers describe the stress they feel at Amazon. Like the Chinese, Amazon workers are pushed to become more efficient. Using metrics workers are given an unreasonably high production quotas to meet, and they complain about being in a constant state of stress to meet the quotas. Many workers also complain that two ten minute breaks in a ten hour shift is not enough time for many to get to the bathroom when bathrooms are at the other end of the giant distribution facility. While Amazon does pay $15 dollars an hour, it is a terrible place to work.
A much better employer is Costco where workers are treated humanely, and it just made the beginning salary $16 dollars per hour. In addition, Costco offers health and dental insurance, a matching 401K, paid time off and other useful perks.https://www.rather-be-shopping.com/blog/costco-employee-benefits/
Amazon & Walmart have become the railroads & meat packing plants of the 21st century.
You nailed it. Walmart’s been that way for some time. I do everything possible to avoid Walmart since learning that they were teaching their employees how to apply for food stamps and other assistance. I thought the whole point of a job was to have less people needing public welfare because they’d have enough money to make ends meet. Walmart has become the granddaddy of crap companies since Sam died and they rake it in every year.
I hope like hell these folks get their union. I hope more unions crop up. Hell, I’m willing to pay a little more money for something if I know the company I’m supporting with my dollars is going to give their employees enough to actually be able to live and thrive. this penny-pinching, force everybody to work 2 or 3 jobs each to make ends barely meet has gone on for too many decades.
Chronic underemployment and abuses needs to die a swift death. Fingers crossed for these folks, and everyone else starting to take steps for their betterment.
I should mention that growing up, my family was management. My father was garment contractor (back when the garment business was in the west 30’s streets), cutting & assembling women’s clothing from patterns for big stores & other private labels. He ran a union shop of about 20-30 sewing machine operators & other workers, & worked right alongside them 6 days a week; he was frequently there hours before they arrived &/or for hours after they left. When the union raised scale & sent some — er — “inspectors” around to make sure employers were complying, he showed them that his lowest paid employees had already been earning more than that & threw them out.
He felt a deep responsibility to his employees, to the point that when he was ready to retire, & continued to work for another 2 years because he didn’t want to leave his employees hanging; he continued until his health finally dictated that he stop.
Your dad’s one of those people that employees would be happy to work for. They’re not cogs in the machine, they live and breathe and have things outside the job.
I think nowadays it’s easy to see why people tend to quit “managers” more than jobs (or “coworkers as a close 2nd). If you’re meant to feel worthless or as a part, even if you love the work you do, it’s hard to stick around and take it. I’ve quit plenty of jobs I enjoyed because of seemingly soul-less managers who check their empathy at the door and won’t listen to concerns.
My husband likes to repeat the saying that unions are a failure of management.
Wow–that’s pretty good.
I am going to steal that for the rest of whatever life I have left, sped! Your husband should have copyrighted that.
I’ll have to ask him where if he knows where it came from.
I asked him to make sure it was original to him. At 71, it is original as it is going to get. He thinks he thunk it. 🙂
My grandfather was in the same business as your dad. He liked working with the ILGWU. They always provided him with qualified workers to keep his ladies underwear shop humming. During the war he manufactured parachutes. When he finally sold the business he remained as machine mechanic, joining the union.
exactly right, Lenny. They can’t offshore and could offer decent jobs without losing most of their profit. This would change the lives of workingclass people just like the organizations of early 20th century did.
If we had a strong union movement in this country, we wouldn’t have to worry about fighting for a $15/hour minimum wage, it would have been taken care of long ago via the unions. But we don’t have a strong union force, quite the opposite due to right to work laws, Taft-Hartley, and all kinds of anti-union tactics from the corporations and state legislatures. The private sector unionization rate is somewhere between 6% – 7% and the overall rate is about 10.1%.
Union membership continues to decline here. A few years ago we were at 12%, the 11.4% and now 10.1%. Compared to other industrialized countries, the US is lagging in membership. Mexico has a higher union membership than the US. https://www.statista.com/chart/9919/the-state-of-the-unions/
Sadly, you hear people who whose lives would be improved by a union repeating management talking points.
speduktr
Sadly I hear Union members repeating Management talking points.
And lots more fed action since Taft-Hartley. Countless deregs of financial sector, plus trade policy, accounting &taxlaw changes incentivizing offshoring jobs and profits, underwriting a wholesale transfer of jobs/ assets from middle & working classes to 1% here & abroad. Now we’re left looking to unionize moving foreign-made consumer goods from importer to consumer.
It says a lot about how Jeff Bezos is as a human being when his ex-wife chooses to give away millions of dollars (divorce settlement $$$) to charity (with no strings attached) and then turns around and gets married to a teacher (low wage career path). I guess Bezos was a real peach to live with while climbing that corporate ladder?
Actually, Bezos’ ex-wife is giving away billions every year to very worthy organizations, no strings attached.
He could have paid 80% income tax and made away with a ton of profit. He could additionally have had reasonable regulation imposed on his company to protect and benefit employees — and made away with a ton of profit.
If these workers manage to win this election and it is a big if in Alabama, it will only be the first step in a long battle with Amazon. If you think Bezos is going to roll over and let the contagion spread you are not familiar with union busting tactics nor Bezos. His first move will be to contest the results of the election to the NLRB. If after many months they uphold the results ; in general a year after an election 52 % of workers do not have a first contract. 3years later 30% do not have a contract . We can expect Bezos to do everything up to relocating work to other facilities in spite of costs and eventually closing that warehouse .
The Protecting Right to Organize act is sitting In the Senate it is probably the only thing that will break employers like Bezos. It reverses substantial parts of Taft Hartley . It forces arbitration for impasses in a first contract and relaxes some prohibitions on the secondary boycott.
Super rich individuals and corporations are not being audited and not paying taxes on their wealth.This is a research report on the extent of the problem.
https://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/latest/641/
Should be interesting to see how Democrats square their renewed support of collective bargaining with their embrace of the virulently anti-union “ed reform movement”.
A lot of the voucher initiatives ed reformers are promoting are a direct response to teachers union activism. They’re less about “vouchers” and more about opposing unions and ed reformers are lockstep supporting all of it.
Ed reformers don’t support private sector unions any more than they support public sector unions- they demonize all union activity of any kind. One place you see it is in their proposals for apprenticeships- they cut all worker/student rights out of their apprenticeships – the “apprenticeships” are wholly controlled by the private sector employers and they are low wage.
Chiara
That depends on how we define Democrats. I have a tough time calling Plutocrats who switch donations according to witch way the wind blows; Democrats . As far as elected officials its a bit complicated.
My own supposedly very pro labor NY Democratic Congressmen who likes to advertise ” Tom and the Trades ” hands me a proposed economic plan out of the “Problem Solvers Caucus”back in 2018 . It included among other things loosening of Child Labor Standards and the IRAPS that you are referring to. The Industry Regulated Apprentice Programs were a stealth attack on Prevailing Wage mainly in the Construction industry . That he was clueless was stunning.
The vast Majority of registered Apprentice programs are in the Building Trades and Machinist Unions. They are State and Federally Regulated yet industry funded. Trump by executive order asked his Labor Dept. to approve IRAPS . In the end Trump made the decision in an election year that his Labor Dept. could not proceed with it. The Building Trades were exempted even as IRAPS had been approved elsewhere. Biden has rescinded the IRAP programs altogether .