Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin talks to Amazon warehouse workers. Image: Ben Bishop
On the Clock is Motherboard's reporting on the organized labor movement, gig work, automation, and the future of work.
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Bessemer lies just 15 miles outside of Birmingham and is a key part of Amazon’s efforts to embed itself within the metropolitan Birmingham area and the surrounding Jefferson County. It employs 6,000 people , has attracted other delivery and logistics firms who are expanding in the region, and there are plans to build multiple delivery stations and facilities.The union drive began late last summer after workers contacted the RWDSU, frustrated with labor conditions and surveillance in the warehouse. By late December, well over 2,000 workers signed cards supporting an election and the National Labor Relations Board decided there was "sufficient" interest. At the end of January, the NLRB ruled that ballots would be mailed out on February 8, returned by March 29, and tallied the next day. A week later, it shot down a desperate appeal from Amazon to delay the mail-in voting.This is, surprisingly, only Amazon's second union election. The first took place in 2014, when a small group of technical workers in a Middleton, Delaware Amazon warehouse voted 21 to 6 against joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.Amazon has fought hard to try and hamstring the unionization efforts at the Bessemer warehouse. The company has brought on contractors to walk around wearing anti-union buttons, but also flooded employees with digital and physical anti-union propaganda. The company has also rolled out its annual buyout offer for Bessemer workers just before a critical vote. Amazon's union-busting efforts, if they are successful, would go a long way towards deterring similar actions across the country and allowing the company to pursue its plans for the Birmingham region undeterred. The Bessemer warehouse union vote comes to an end on March 29.