Amazon’s PR says it’s not a win for Amazon. What can be said is this vote was a huge defeat for labor unions. The way this thing was hyped up I was sure it was going to go in the union’s favor. But, 71% against?!? That’s a giant slap in the union’s face.
Workers at the Bessemer warehouse overwhelmingly rejected unionization, with 71% casting ballots not to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Some who voted no said they didn’t see how a union would substantially improve their pay and benefits.
“Amazon didn’t win—our employees made the choice to vote against joining a union,” the company said Friday.
The rejection is a blow to efforts to increase union membership in the private sector nationally, which has experienced a decades-long decline. The Amazon facility represented an opportunity to organize workers at the second-largest U.S. employer, in a fast-growing industry and in an environment where labor unions have thrived in the past—a large blue-collar site where many employees do similar jobs.
Wall Street Journal
The labor unions have outlived their usefulness. They were needed a time ago but now most of the changes to labor laws are set in stone and no one needs the labor union to stand in between. Especially since the unions use their dues primarily for poltics.
“A lot of us are in agreement that we don’t need anybody there to speak for us and take our money,” said Cori Jennings, 40 years old, who works there and voted against unionizing. Ms. Jennings, who talked to The Wall Street Journal before the results were final, said she and many of her colleagues were also eager for the national attention to fade: “We want our lives to go back to normal.”
The outcome underscores unions’ difficulties in boosting their ranks in the U.S. private sector, where they represent just 6.3% of workers, down from 24.2% in 1973, according to the earliest available data from Georgia State University’s union stats database. Of total U.S. workers, 10.8% were union members last year, according to the Labor Department.
Wall Street Journal
The troubling unions are the public employee unions. They unionized against the public and in my view should be illegal because there is no way for their true employers, the taxpayers, to have direct negotiations. Instead elected politicians, which get tons of funding from public employee labor unions, rubber stamp their new contracts.
I’m sure this union and it’s members were big critics of Trump and Trump voters for wanting to look into the 2020 election for fraud. This is an assumption of course but I feel it’s a safe one. But lookee here. They are contesting the results of the vote and want it overturned. Hmmmm.
The union said it would appeal the vote, accusing Amazon of violating legal restrictions governing unionization campaigns. Amazon has said it followed the law in communicating with employees before and during the election.
The appeal would seek to overturn results of the election or have it held again. The union is expected to take issue with meetings Amazon held with Bessemer employees and a mailbox the company pushed to install outside the facility.
“We won’t rest until workers’ voices are heard fairly under the law. When they are, we believe they will be victorious in this historic and critical fight to unionize the first Amazon warehouse in the United States,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said.
Wall Street Journal
Let’s keep our eye on this one. Hahahaha.
Image by kirstyfields from Pixabay