Amazon’s anti-unionization playbook

Amazon faces a unionization drive at a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. — the largest and most viable U.S. labor challenge in years. The Times’s David Streitfeld looked into the e-commerce giant’s previous efforts to block organized labor. He found a host of tough tactics … that worked. Will they again?

Among Amazon’s steps to oppose a unionization drive in Chester, Va. five years ago, according to regulatory documents and employees:

Human resources officials were brought in, and some were accused of following workers to glean their positions on the union drive.
Supporters of the effort were described as “a cancer and a disease to Amazon and the facility,” according to Bill Hough Jr., a leader of that organization effort, and a memo from the union sponsoring the effort.
Mr. Hough was accused of insubordination and was told he may lose his job if he continued to have a “negative impact.”

Amazon secretly reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board, after the union behind the drive lodged a complaint. The company was required to post notices around the warehouse promising good behavior, though it did not have to admit to labor law violations or pay financial penalties.

In the end, most employees who had supported the union drive quit.

Organizers of the Alabama unionization effort say the company has tried similar tactics. Amazon, they assert, tried to surveil employees while posting notices around the Bessemer warehouse bad-mouthing the union. (One claimed workers would need to skimp on dinner to pay union dues.) Management even changed a traffic signal to hinder organizers’ efforts to approach workers.

Those accusations prompted President Biden to say that “workers in Alabama” — Amazon wasn’t specifically named — shouldn’t face “intimidation or threats by employers.” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, expressed support for Amazon workers, saying the company had “decided to wage culture war against working-class values.”

Union organizers are pessimistic. Nearly 6,000 workers at the Bessemer warehouse have until March 29 to decide whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “They will fall to threats or think, ‘I won’t have a job, Amazon will replace me,’” Mr. Hough told The Times. He added, “I’m hoping for the best.” In a statement, Amazon said it did not believe the union push in Alabama “represents the majority of our employees’ views.”
The New York Times