Counting of votes has begun in the second union election held at Amazon's processing warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, in less than a year.
The nearly 6,000 workers at the plant finished voting on whether to form a union, but results are not expected to be publicly disclosed until later this week. Voting is also wrapping up at a second facility in Staten Island, New York, with vote counting set to begin on March 31.
With the two elections, Amazon faces its toughest labor fight yet. The nation's second-largest employer has a history of successfully beating back labor at its facilities. If a majority of workers votes yes at either location, it would mark the first successful U.S. organizing effort in Amazon history, providing further momentum to the recent wave of organizing efforts across the country.
Still, the landscape is radically different in the two cities. Here's what the elections look like in Bessemer and Staten Island:
Workers trying to organize in Alabama face a starkly more challenging environment than in New York.
Last year, union members accounted for 22.2% of wage and salary workers in New York, ranked only behind Hawaii, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's more than double the national average of 10.3%. In Alabama, it's 5.9%.
Alabama is also a right-to-work state, which prohibits a company and a union from signing a contract that requires workers to pay dues to the union that represents them. Pro-labor experts have said...
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