From today’s NPR News:
It could have been the first unionized Amazon warehouse in America. Now, three years later, workers are waiting to learn whether they’ll get a third shot at a union election.
A sweeping, monthslong hearing begins on Thursday to decide the fate of the unionization campaign at Amazon’s facility in Bessemer, Alabama. An administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will review the company’s and the union’s conduct in the last election, which has remained too close to call since 2022.
As the COVID-19 pandemic peaked, labor organizers collected enough signatures from Bessemer workers to garner the very first union election at an Amazon warehouse. Union supporters advocated for longer breaks, more health and safety measures, higher pay and better benefits. Celebrities, lawmakers and even President Biden expressed solidarity.
But in the spring of 2021, workers voted more than 2-to-1 against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Later, U.S. labor officials ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the vote, particularly by placing a mailbox for ballots in an Amazon-branded tent in a surveilled parking lot.
The remedy was a do-over. A full year after the first go, Bessemer warehouse workers voted again on unionizing in March 2022. Because too many ballots were challenged by either Amazon or the union, and because the wheels of the labor legal system turn slowly, that election remains unresolved to this day.
Read the complete story here.