(NEW YORK) — It was dubbed a watershed moment for the withering organized labor movement when the first-ever union election at an Amazon warehouse took place last spring in Alabama.
Workers seeking collective bargaining rights at a fulfillment outpost of the e-commerce giant in Bessemer — a rural, predominantly Black suburb of Birmingham — garnered international headlines and even backing from the White House ahead of last year’s landmark vote.
Despite the high-profile support, hopes of forming Amazon’s first labor union were ultimately crushed last year when less than 16% of some 5,000 eligible workers voted in favor it, per the National Labor Relations Board’s tally.
The saga in the South, however, did not end there for the nation’s second-largest employer.
After objections alleging union-busting conduct from Amazon filed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which sought to represent the workers, the NLRB ordered a do-over of the entire election.
Now, approximately a year since the first showdown, the NLRB is set to mail ballots out Friday for a second union vote at the same Bessemer Amazon facility. The rerun comes amid the backdrop of an American labor market still scarred by pandemic shocks, giving new leverage to workers, and in the wake of a tidal wave of workplace activism marked by strikes and collective actions at major companies from John Deere to Starbucks.
With all eyes back on Bessemer, here is what some economists and workers say the failed...
PHOTO: RSPCA VIA AFP LONDON - An animal welfare charity has revealed it rescued more than 250 dogs from one UK home, with a photo of the scene prompting “disbelief” and false claims that the image...