This story was published as part of Teen Vogue’s 2021 Economic Security Project fellowship.
With the obvious limitations of in-person shopping during the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon recommendation lists are everywhere. “Favorite Amazon Purchases” videos are routine content for YouTube and TikTok influencers. And as expected, the global platform recorded astronomical numbers nearly every quarter last year, reporting $88.9 billion in net sales by the end of June and another $96.1 billion by the end of October. By the end of the year, Amazon had broken $100 billion in sales in a single quarter, raking in $125.6 billion by December’s end.
But there’s a human side to this astounding corporate success: the workers who make all those deliveries possible. After years of Amazon workers fighting for better treatment and better pay, workers in one Alabama town are on the verge of a potential watershed moment: becoming the first Amazon warehouse in the country to form a union.
Employees at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse facility are currently in the process of voting to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), a move that would set a crucial precedent for the company’s U.S.-based workforce. More than a dozen U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, signed a letter in support of the employees’ union drive. Those lawmakers, along with countless pro-union advocates and organizations, argue that organized workers have a better chance of winning a more equitable portion of the massive profits Amazon has amassed because of them. Mail-in voting began on February 8 and ballots are due March 29.
Employees at the majority-Black and majority-women Bessemer warehouse location are asking for higher pay, better benefits, stronger worker protections, and more manageable productivity expectations. A website backing the unionization efforts calls for a just-cause standard for firing employees, establishing a fair grievance procedure, and ensuring safer working conditions.
In a statement provided to Teen Vogue, Amazon spokesperson Heather Knox said the company is worker-friendly, noting that new warehouse employees receive full health-care benefits, company contributions to their 401K, and $15.30 per hour starting pay. “We work hard to support our teams and more than 90% of associates at our Bessemer site say they would recommend Amazon as a good place to work to their friends.”
But some workers say that the tough physical requirements and daily wear-and-tear on the body make working at the warehouse especially taxing. One investigation conducted by Reveal found an injury rate at Amazon “fulfillment centers” that was nearly double the most-recent industry standard. In a radio interview with NPR affiliate WBUR, an employee at the Bessemer facility named Jennifer Bates said, “You can tell that the people are tired. They’re slow walking out or either limping walking out. And for the pay that we’re receiving — for the workload — it doesn’t balance out.”
Knox insists that Amazon has employees’ best interest at heart, saying, “Our employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs available everywhere we hire, and we encourage anyone to compare our total compensation package, health benefits, and workplace environment to any other company with similar jobs.”
Amazon has been accused by pro-union groups of engaging in anti-union efforts at the Bessemer facility in hopes of deterring workers from organizing. Activists allege the company’s methods have ranged from putting up anti-union flyers in bathrooms to sending multiple text messages per day to employees attempting to dissuade union voters, according to a video created by the progressive multimedia organization More Perfect Union. Wired reported that the company tried to push the National Labor Relations Board, a national organization that regulates labor and union arrangements, to enforce in-person voting for the union vote, mirroring the GOP’s efforts to block mail-in voting during the 2020 presidential election.
The RWDSU told Wired that Bessemer warehouse employees have been pulled into meetings or “classes” where people who claim to be former union representatives tell workers how terrible unions supposedly are. According to the union, the instructors have shown workers labor contracts from nearby poultry plants with lower wages than Amazon’s current wages without revealing that those workers were earning even lower rates before RWDSU stepped in to represent them, Wired reported.
Despite Alabama being a “right-to-work” state — a label that notes the passage of “right-to-work” laws that weaken employees’ ability to unionize — Bessemer actually has a strong pro-union history with the United Steelworkers, the largest industrial union in North America. Tellingly, more than 3,000 of the facility’s roughly 5,800 employees originally signed union authorization cards back in November 2020, petitioning the NLRB to hold a union vote.
Winning a union at the Bessemer facility would be a sizable win for the local warehouse, as well as Amazon workers across the country and the modern U.S. labor movement at large. Locally, Bessemer employees would gain a collective bargaining body to advocate for workplace improvements that could transform their income and working conditions. For example, a union could’ve theoretically fought for shorter shifts to limit COVID-19 exposure or more hazard pay at the Bessemer facility. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos actually increased his fortune during the pandemic by an amount 42 times greater than the total sum spent on hazard pay for Amazon’s entire workforce through the end of 2020, according to a report from the Brookings Institute.) In fact, as Business Insider reported, Amazon ended its slight hazard pay increase of $2-an-hour at the end of May of last year, despite COVID-19’s ongoing threat. And while the company also gave employees a one-time pandemic-related bonus in June, no additional compensation was provided as of late November, the New York Times reported, even as virus cases were growing exponentially across the country.
On a national scale, establishing a union could provide the energy needed to spur successful union organizing efforts at Amazon workplaces across the country. And if the employees at Bessemer do manage to set a new standard for workplace conditions, pay, benefits, and accountability, they’ll offer a success story that could inspire thousands of other Amazon workers around the world.
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