Amazon Wins Major Battle Over Unions, Could Have Implications for RI

Amazon Wins Major Battle Over Unions, Could Have Implications for RI

Amazon employees in Alabama voted overwhelmingly not to unionize, according to a Wall Street Journal tally.

This is another victory for the tech giant in its biggest battle yet against labor-organizing efforts that fueled national debate over working conditions at one of the nation’s largest employers.

Presently, Amazon is eyeing a massive facility in Rhode Island, as GoLocal first reported in January.

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With about 80% of ballots counted, some 71% of the Bessemer, Alabama warehouse workers voted against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, reports the WSJ.

"The National Labor Relations Board has finished counting all votes that weren’t challenged by either side, and the number of votes against a union exceeds 1,608, the total needed to reach a majority of the 3,215 mail-in ballots workers submitted. The NLRB hasn’t declared an official winner.  The Bessemer facility employs fewer than 1% of the roughly 950,000 Amazon employees in the U.S., but the vote emerged as a watershed moment for a company that hired faster than almost any private corporation in history last year," according to the WSJ.

According to the New York Times, "The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which led the drive, blamed its defeat on what it said were Amazon’s anti-union tactics before and during the voting, which was conducted from early February through the end of last month. The union said it would challenge the election results and ask federal labor officials to investigate Amazon for creating an “atmosphere of confusion, coercion and/or fear of reprisals. 'Our system is broken,' said Stuart Appelbaum, the union’s president. 'Amazon took full advantage of that.'”

This is yet another sweeping victory for Jeff Bezos -- the richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of over $110 billion.