Amazon worker organization

In 2016, Amazon stopped a unionization drive in Chester, Virginia. Organizers were derided as "a cancer" to the workplace and some human resources officials were accused of tracking employee positions on the drive. The union filed a complaint and Amazon settled with the National Labor Relations Board, agreeing to post notices but not having to concede legal violations or fines. Most of the union supporters left.[17]

Amazon opened a fulfillment warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, in March 2020. Within several months, Jennifer Bates,[19] a warehouse worker at the facility, began leading workers in organizing to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU).[20] Bessemer warehouse workers filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in November to hold a unionization vote. The bargaining unit was originally proposed as 1,500 full-time and part-time employees.[21] The workers, who are 85% Black, were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement.[22] Amazon fought the effort hard.[20] The company retained anti-union lawyers Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, the same firm Amazon used to successfully fight the Delaware warehouse unionization effort in 2014.[23] The NLRB denied the company's request to delay initial hearings.[23] Amazon recommended expanding the bargaining unit to 5,700 workers, and in a three-day NLRB hearing, lawyers from Amazon and the union established a broader bargaining unit membership than originally proposed, including seasonal hires and on-site medical, safety, and training workers.[7] These were common tactics to discourage unionization, as a larger bargaining unit would dilute the union's penetration, having only organized a portion of the originally proposed, smaller unit.[23] The union accepted the expanded unit to let the vote proceed sooner.[6] During the drive, Amazon held mandatory meetings to hear the company's anti-union position and hung signage to discourage unionization.[1]

The union drive received outward support from American politicians including U.S. Representatives Andy Levin, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Terri Sewell, Nikema Williams and US Senator Bernie Sanders, among many others. President Joe Biden alluded to the Alabama drive in a contemporaneous speech in support of unions.[24] Biden gave stronger support than any president has given unions in decades, and labor activists said his advocacy would build his support in the working class, fighting off Republican inroads there.[25] During the drive, the RWDSU reported interest from a thousand Amazon workers across the United States.[26]

Mail-in ballots were distributed on February 8, 2021, after the NLRB rejected Amazon's attempt to delay the vote.[27] Ballots were due by March 29[28] to be counted on April 8 and 9.[29] The vast majority voted against unionization: 1,798 to 738. Of about 6,000 eligible employees, about 40% had participated. An additional 505 ballots were contested and left sealed, not being numerous enough in count to sway the final tally.[20]

The RWDSU filed unfair labor practice charges against Amazon before the NLRB, alleging that the company interfered in employees' right to "vote in a free and fair election".[30][31] Their largest contention concerned potential worker intimidation based on the location of a ballot box. Amazon originally proposed on-site ballot boxes, which the NLRB rejected as giving the appearance that Amazon controlled the vote and potentially intimidating workers to not oppose the company's position. Instead, the United States Postal Service (USPS) approved a mailbox in the Bessemer warehouse's parking lot. Top-level management from Amazon and USPS were involved in the request, as Amazon strongly wanted employees to use this mailbox. After the USPS denied Amazon permission to add signage to the mailbox itself, Amazon built a tent around the mailbox to add its own signage calling attention to the mailbox as a place to vote. Amazon intended the tent to protect voter privacy, but the parent union held that the tent made the mail-in vote appear to be under company surveillance and control, rather than by the independent NLRB. Separately, a pro-union employee[32] testified to having seen company security guards open the mailbox. Amazon said their access was limited to incoming mailboxes. RWDSU had known about the mailbox in advance of the vote and chose to proceed. Former NLRB chair Wilma B. Liebman said that the mailbox contention is "strong grounds for overturning the election".[20] Several Postal Service employees testified that Amazon had not been provided keys to the mailbox.[32]

In August 2021, an NLRB report on the Bessemer union drive found that "a free and fair election was impossible" and that "possibility that the employer's misconduct influenced some of these 2,000 eligible voters [who did not vote]."[33]

On November 29, 2021, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ordered a re-vote.[32] In March 2022, the warehouse voted for a second time, but the result was too close to call with more than 400 ballots being contested and 875-993 counted votes in favor of unionizing.[34]

In the first 12 months of the pandemic, 37 labor complaints were filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), more than triple the prior year and multiple cases involving labor organizers. One complaint concerned an employee who organized a walkout over pandemic working conditions in a Queens, New York, warehouse. The employee, Jonathan Bailey, a co-founder of Amazonians United, was interrogated and accused of harassment. The NLRB filed a federal complaint against Amazon after finding merit to the worker's claims of company retaliation for protected activities. In another case, the NLRB sided with a Pennsylvania warehouse worker who had lobbied for sick pay for part-time employees. She settled with Amazon and withdrew her complaint. The increase in cases reflects rising activism among Amazon warehouse workers.[1] The warehouse worker firings led to public acts of solidarity from some Amazon corporate employees. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, both user experience designers, were fired for violating internal policies in April 2020, which the NLRB later determined had been unlawful resulting in a board settlement involving back pay and notice-posting around employees' right to organize.[35] Tim Bray, a vice president of Amazon Web Services resigned in response based on the handling of their case.[1]

Amazon's 158,000 DSP drivers are subcontracted across 2,500 companies spanning eight countries, such that Amazon can drop any one provider whose workers unionize. One DSP provider's Michigan office closed within a month of its workers voting to organize in 2017. Amazon supplies subcontracted companies with financing and surveillance technology to track driver movements in real time. The subcontracted companies, in turn, handle workplace management and liability, insulating Amazon.[36] After the Michigan example, Amazon advised other DSP firms on how to avoid union drives, which proved successful through early 2021. The Bessemer union drive inspired a peer-organized poll of Amazon delivery drivers (Delivery Service Partners, or DSP), in which the vast majority of its 500 respondents showed interest in unionizing. [36][37]

Following the failed drive, the major labor union Teamsters resolved with near unanimity in their June 2021 Teamsters convention to organize Amazon warehouse and delivery workers as a central focus.[38][39]

In April 2023, 84 drivers were voluntarily recognized by Battle Tested Strategies (BTS), a DPS contractor in Palmdale, California. Shortly after, on 28 April, they ratified their first collective bargaining agreement, which will raise their wages from $19.75 an hour to $30 starting in September. However, BTS's contract with Amazon expires in October. At stake is the question whether Amazon is a joint employer or not.[40][41]

On March 30, 2020, Chris Smalls and Derrick Palmer led a walkout in response to Amazon's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly what the workers said was a lack of proper safety protocols at a Staten Island warehouse, JFK8. Smalls was fired the same day for violating the company's social distancing policies while on a required, paid 14-day quarantine after being exposed to COVID-19. Smalls had been exposed on March 11, 2020, but was not notified until March 28, 2020, prompting multiple government-led criticism and investigations. Smalls subsequently founded a labor-activist group, The Congress of Essential Workers, which orchestrated a number of strike actions in 2020. In April 2021, the group formed an independent trade union for Amazon workers, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU).[42][43][44][45]

The ALU's initial union drive encompassed all four New York City (NYC) Amazon warehouses. On October 25, 2021, the NLRB announced that enough JFK8 workers had submitted authorization cards to hold an election. The trade union withdrew their request the following November, after Amazon had contested the number of employees and the validity of some of the collected signatures, to collect a higher percentage of cards. On January 26, 2022, the ALU announced they had petitioned another vote with the NLRB, which was held over a five-day period at the end of March 2022, and on April 1, 2022, the workers at JFK8 voted 2,654-2,131 in favor of the union, becoming the first NLRB-recognized unionized Amazon workplace in the United States.[46][47][48]

On March 2, 2022, the NLRB approved a union election at the second of the four NYC warehouses, LDJ5.[49] On May 2, employees of LDJ5 voted 618 to 380 against forming a union.[50]

In 2022, an Amazon Fresh store in Seattle, Washington formed an independent union and declared themselves to be a union to their management. Amazon Workers United have not petitioned for recognition with the NLRB.[51]

Inspired by the 2013 German strikes, 3 French trade unions CGT, FO and Solidaires (SUD) called for industrial strikes at the Saran Amazon location in June 2014.[56]^{: 216–217}

In France during the COVID-19 pandemic, unions were involved in setting the terms of warehouse workers returning to work, including pandemic protections for workers, following a month-long dispute. Those who volunteered to return sooner, in a reduced capacity, received bonus pay and a reduced work day.[61]

Germany is Amazon's largest market outside of the United States as of 2019.[62][63] Amazon opened its first German logistics center in 1999 (FRA1) followed by FRA3 in 2009 in Bad Hersfeld.[64] Hundreds of Amazon warehouse workers in Leipzig and Bad Hersfeld, organized with the trade union Ver.di, went on strike in 2013 over their worker classifications and salaries. Amazon subsequently improved overtime schedules, break rooms, and introduced Christmas bonuses.[9][65][66] Amazon confirmed it would be opening three logistics centers in Poland.[65][67]

Workers in multiple Amazon warehouses went on strike for better pay and working conditions during the company's June 2021 Prime Day.[68]

Amazon instrumentalizes support for works councils at its facilities, in part to negate the need for trade unions or collective bargaining. By promoting management friendly candidates in works council elections, Amazon is able to weaken trade union influence.[69] Amazon legally structures each of their facilities as separate legal entities, so that local works councils can be established, however without any formal structures connecting them so no Central Works Council can be established, and because its European headquarters are outside Germany (in Belgium and Luxembourg) no Group Works Council is possible either.[70]^: 21

Amazon opened its first Fulfillment Center in Piacenza, Italy in 2011.[71][72] The first two industrial strikes happened later in 2017, which resulted in collective bargaining with Amazon management.[73] One year later, the May 2018 collective bargaining agreement between Amazon and the Italian Federation of Commerce, Hotel and Service Workers (Filcams CGIL) trade union, with 70% of voters in favor, was the company's first collective agreement anywhere in the world.[58][59]

On March 22, 2021, Amazon workers across the supply chain organized the first nationwide strike in Amazon's history, including warehouse, logistics and subcontracted delivery workers.[72][74][75]

Amazon opened its first logistics centers near the Polish cities Poznań and Wrocław in September 2014. While operating in Poland, they primarily serve foreign markets, notably Germany.[76] There are two trade unions involved in organizing Amazon workers. The more militant union Inicjatywa Pracownicza (Workers' Initiative) is active in Poznań. They are criticized by the more mainstream and established Polish union Solidarność (which is affiliated with UNI Global Union) as being 'too radical'.[76][56]^: 214 During a German strike in 2015, due to Poland's close geographic proximity to Germany, orders shifted and increased in Poland. Several dozen workers in Poznań facility engaged in a work slowdown. Shortly afterwards, Amazon increased the hourly wage by one złoty to 15 PLN.[77]

Amazon contractors of CEVA Logistics went on strike in Kocaeli, Turkey in June 2022 as part of the independent union DGD-Sen,[78] and again in August 2022.[79]

Cyber Monday protest organized by GMB outside Amazon's London HQ in 2019.

Amazon arrived in the UK in 1998.[80] It is the 2nd largest market in Europe after Germany.[56]^{: 215–216} In 2001, 80% of workers at the Milton Keynes Fulfillment Center (STN8) voted against unionizing with Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU, now part of Unite the Union),[56]^{: 215–216} which the union partly blames on union busting.[81][82] Amazon.co.uk hired a US union busting consultancy organization The Burke Group to assist in defeating the union campaign.[83] GPMU alleged that the company victimized or sacked four union members during the 2001 recognition drive and held a series of captive meetings with employees.[83]

Since 2020, GMB is the main union responsible for organizing Amazon warehouse workers in the UK.[56]^{: 215–216} There was a worker walkout in a Tilbury fulfillment center in 2022 over compensation, as British workers face increased cost-of-living expenses.[84]