Amazon is facing a known opponent in the Alabama Union election

The trade giant is facing a well-known adversary: ​​the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU, who, along with local organizers, help lead the pro-union campaign. The union has helped organize thousands of poultry workers in Alabama, a right-to-work state, and has become a frequent Amazon antagonist in recent years. The RWDSU fought the company’s plans for a second headquarters in New York in late 2018 and backed workers’ protests in some warehouses during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to labor experts, the current effort has so far been more successful than other attempts to organize Amazon workers. They note that a successful union action in the warehouse could spur similar promotions at Amazon’s more than 800 US facilities.

“Amazon saw their demand skyrocket” during the pandemic, said Arthur Wheaton, director of Western NY Labor and Environmental Programs for the Worker Institute at Cornell University. The company’s continued growth will lead to increasing control over how it pays and treats its employees, he said.

The effort continues to face formidable obstacles. Amazon has tried to delay the scheduled start of the elections on February 8, and appealed the National Labor Relations Board’s decision to allow a postal vote. While the vote is likely to go as planned, a decision to join a union could lead to years of initial contract negotiations, labor experts say.

The company holds regular meetings at its 855,000-square-foot facility about 15 miles southwest of Birmingham to counter the union’s efforts, workers say. It also hired a law firm that specializes in countering organizational efforts and set up a website claiming that employees are already receiving the benefits and rewards that a union would negotiate and vote no for to avoid the cost of membership fees.

A spokeswoman for Amazon said the company does not “believe the RWDSU represents the majority of our employees’ views. Our employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs available anywhere, and we encourage everyone to compare our total compensation package, health benefits and work environment against any other company with similar jobs. “

When workers vote for the union, Alabama rules mean that workers are not automatically part of the union. Employees are not required to join the union or pay dues, which may make it more difficult to expand membership. Some workers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they did not support because they did not believe union representation would significantly improve their conditions.

Amazon has opposed several previous union efforts. An attempt, backed by the RWDSU in 2018, to organize workers on Amazon’s Whole Foods Market failed to gain traction. About four years earlier, a small number of maintenance and repair technicians voted to attempt unionization at a facility in Middletown, Del., Af.

To make their case this time, local organizers have gathered near Amazon’s Bessemer, Ala., A facility with signs and red attire, where they talk to employees at a traffic light and hand out kites. “Don’t let Amazon scare you!” a read.

According to Joshua Brewer, an organizer at the union’s Mid-South Council, organizers cannot enter the warehouse and the union recently received contact information for the facility’s workers.

The union relied on local ties in Bessemer, distributed information through workers’ relatives, and relied on support from local unions. Since many of the employees in the Amazon warehouse are black and some have been involved in the Black Lives Matter movement, the union has touched on issues related to racial empowerment, Mr Brewer said.

“It comes here and is present, not for an event or for a day, but setting up a presence outside the facility that says we are here and not leaving,” he said. “They see us every day.”

A group of employees from the factory in Bessemer, which opened last spring, made contact with the union for the first time last summer. According to the union, workers were frustrated by Amazon’s grueling workload requirements and the company’s oversight of workers.

Amazon uses cameras and an internal system that tracks employee movements and productivity by the second, an issue that has been a concern of employees for years. Some workers criticized the use of the techniques during the pandemic as they rushed to fill a drastic increase in orders, and felt that their essential work should have given them a reprieve from such methods.

RWDSU representatives; unionists from nearby warehouses, poultry houses and nursing homes; and Amazon workers started rallies in restaurants and hotels and began their outreach campaign in October.

The organizers collected thousands of signatures from employees who expressed their support for an election. In December, the Labor Council decided to advance the elections and later set the voting period from February to March.

The RWDSU has had success in Southern states, particularly in the poultry industry. The union said it represents about 15,000 poultry workers in the south, including Alabama. Early in the pandemic, it reported deadly outbreaks of Covid-19 in poultry facilities, while urging employers to improve working conditions. Large poultry farms have, among other things, implemented temperature controls, cleaned more and issued protective equipment.

The RWDSU was chartered in the late 1930s and now represents thousands of chain store employees including Macy’s Inc.

and Bloomingdale’s, as well as workers in the storage and service sectors.

The union was among a group of critics in the midst of a fierce reaction when Amazon announced plans to establish part of a second headquarters in New York City in late 2018.

Amazon had selected the city as part of its so-called “HQ2” development around the same time the RWDSU had rallied support for workers to unite at a facility on Staten Island, an effort that eventually hissed. The union opposed the nearly $ 3 billion in government incentives Amazon is said to have received for creating 25,000 jobs in the city.

The union was involved in a last-ditch meeting with business leaders organized by Governor Andrew Cuomo to save the planned expansion. At the meeting, executives and union leaders tentatively agreed to continue discussions on the union effort, according to people familiar with the talks.

Amazon eventually scuttled its plans for New York expansion, but the company recently announced plans to hire thousands of new employees in several major U.S. cities, including New York.

“We saw that they were big and big and powerful, but they were also arrogant,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU, in an interview. “‘You can compete with Amazon’ was an important lesson from HQ2.”

Write to Sebastian Herrera at [email protected]