Amazon employees in Bessemer, Alabama, voted overwhelmingly against unionizing this week.
Experts said Amazon's anti-union push proved companies have too much power over workers.
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Amazon said it was glad its employees’ "collective voices were finally heard.” But Rebecca Givan, a Rutgers associate labor and employment professor, said the result actually “reflects the imbalance in current US labor law.”
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In countries where union laws favor employees, some Amazon workers have successfully negotiated pay raises through their union. In Bessemer, workers had a much tougher road to travel.
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"Amazon's tactics during the campaign and voting process were successful for them but now are being questioned ... in the public view," one expert said.
Those tactics started even before employees started talking about forming a union.
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Amazon also sought to shape the voting process itself. The company reportedly pressed the USPS to install a mailbox outside the Bessemer warehouse to collect union votes.
This potentially intimidated employees.
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All of that said, the massive amount of attention and public support for the Bessemmer union effort suggests there may finally be an appetite to begin labor reform.
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President Joe Biden has already signaled he intends to be much more pro-worker than Trump, releasing a video in support of unionization efforts and against corporate "anti-union propaganda" — as Amazon employees were voting.
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The pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020 have also forced Americans to reckon with how race plays a role in the workplace. Labor union @RWDSU estimated 85% of the workers at the Bessemer warehouse are Black.
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