NEW YORK — Amazon workers and organizers in Bessemer, Alabama, are making door-to-door house calls, sporting pro-union T-shirts and challenging anti-union messaging by Amazon-hired consultants as they try to convince their peers for the second time to unionize their warehouse in an election that starts Friday by secret ballot.
The new organizing tactics come two months after the National Labor Relations Board ordered a do-over election upon determining that Amazon unfairly influenced the first election last year. Workers back then overwhelmingly rejected the union in a vote of 1,798 to 738 and a turnout of 53%.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which like last time is spearheading the union drive, has solicited help from other unions, including those representing teachers and postal clerks.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the RWDSU, says the union is also courting community groups like Greater Birmingham Ministries to amplify the message that Amazon workers are not just warehouse workers but belong to communities and deserve respect.
“Alabama has a long history of denying the rights of workers in order to attract corporations,” said Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries. ”We have to put a stop to this.”
RWDSU estimates that more than half of the roughly 6,100 workers at the Alabama facility who voted last year remain eligible to vote in the current election. But the numbers also speak to high worker turnover — an issue that has made it difficult for organizing efforts to gain traction in Bessemer and elsewhere.
Organizers are nonetheless optimistic. Vaccines have made it easier for them to do face-to-face meetings during the pandemic as opposed to the texts, emails and phone calls they relied on last year. They also say workers are more open to being unionized and that new employees are taking note of the labor unrest that has become even stronger in recent months, not just at Amazon but other companies such as Starbucks.
“We are letting Amazon know that we are going to stick together. We are going to work together and we are going to be one,” said Bessemer worker Kristina Bell during a union-organized call last week.
