Joe Biden has endorsed it effectively ongoing unionization efforts at an Amazon facility in the state of Alabama, warning the e-commerce giant that its efforts to end the drive should include “no harassment, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda”.
Amazon employees have long complained about everything grueling hours and quotas in exchange for a low fee for it amazing amount of injuries in warehouses dangerous conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, dystopic workplace surveillance driver tip skimming, and retaliation of particularly outspoken employees. As well as the course, Amazon has opposed the labor organizers’ work to persuade nearly 6,000 employees at a distribution center in the predominantly black city of Bessemer, Alabama, to vote to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, and to organize efforts more broadly – using techniques common in corporate America, but these are deployed with the special zeal of the e-commerce titan.
Amazon has bombed workers with it propaganda against trade unions she sent pro management messages, vacancies posted for trade union experts, and forced them to attend mandatory meetings. In Alabama, executives at Amazon wanted to have the post of the National Labor Relations Boardcast a union vote, and have tried to have the vote take place in person during the coronavirus pandemic. Labor Organizers the media have told Which workers in the facility were captive audiences at mandatory anti-union meetings and that managers tried to intimidate workers who challenged the information given in those sessions by photographing their work badgesThe election is nonetheless under Amazon’s terms tried to avoid, carried out via mail-in ballots that will be counted on March 30The stakes are high: If workers successfully form Amazon’s first union in Alabama, it is likely to unleash a tidal wave of union action in other work sites. A recent nationwide survey shared with Gizmodo showed that the vast majority of the hundreds of Amazon drivers surveyed supported their own unions.
In a video message on Twitter about “workers in Alabama” on Sunday, Biden reiterated his support for unions and said he would keep his “pledge” to support the organization. He did not mention Amazon by name, although there was no doubt which employer he called.
“You should all remember that the National Labor Relations Act not only said that unions should exist, but also that we should encourage unions,” Biden said. “Let me be very clear: it is not up to me to decide whether someone should join a union. But let me be even clearer: it is not up to an employer to decide that either. “
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“The choice to join a union is up to the workers – period. Point,Biden continued. Today and in the coming days and weeks, workers in Alabama and across America are voting to form a union at their workplace. This is vital, an extremely important choice as America grapples with the deadly pandemic, economic crisis and race-based accounting — highlighting the vast differences that still exist in our country. “
“And there should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, no anti-union propaganda,” concluded Biden. “No supervisor should confront employees with their union preferences … Every employee should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice. And it’s your right, not an employer’s right, it’s your right. No employer can immediately accept that. “
The New York Times wrote it is ‘unusual’ for presidents to express their views on specific labor disputes (a sentiment that may only go in one direction, given the last administration inexorably hostile attitude to the labor movement and attempts to break the federal unionThe Washington Post wrote that Biden’s rebuttal is striking “ because Amazon’s senior vice president of global affairs, whiny corporate mouthpiece Jay Carney, served as the White House press secretary under the Barack Obama and Biden administrations. Carney was no doubt appointed in the expectation that his tenure in the executive branch could help the company turn the wheels in D.C.
Faiz Shakir, a former assistant to Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, is the founder of More Perfect Union, one of many labor interest organizations who have urged Biden to speak out in favor of Alabama’s union effort. Shakir told the Post that Biden’s statement was the biggest show of union support to come from the White House in many years.
“We haven’t had this aggressive and positive statement from a president of the United States on behalf of workers for decades,” said Shakir. “It is monumental that you have a president who sends a message to workers across the country that if you take the courageous step of starting a union, you will have allies in the administration, NLRB and the Department of Labor. It means a lot. “
“It’s almost unprecedented in American history,” Erik Loomis, an employment historian from the University of Rhode Island, also told The Post. “We feel like previous presidents in the mid-20th century were openly pro-union, but that really wasn’t the case. Even [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] never really came out telling workers directly to support a union. “
While Biden’s support for the Amazon effort is a significant development, undoing the Trump-era damage to the workers’ movement and institutions like the NLRB won’t happen anywhere near the night. The NLRB was run by Trump appointees who were eagerly used their power to carry out sweeping attacks on workers’ rights, their ability to organize and rules that hold employers accountable.
The new acting general counsel of the Biden administration at NLRB, Peter Sung’s ear, has reversed numerous Trump-era guidelines. But Biden has still to act On major labor law reforms such as the proposed law protecting the right to organize, which would set teeth in the NLRB’s supervisory authority, and also prevent employers from forcing unions to negotiate deadlocks and implement pro-management contracts.