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Amazon workers at the warehouse in Bessemer were on track to
reject unionization by a 2-1 margin, with almost half the 3,215
ballots counted on Thursday. Some 1,100 ballots were voted
against forming a union, with 463 ballots in favor.
The vote count will resume at 8:30 a.m. CT (1330 GMT) Friday.
Unionizing Amazon, the second-largest private employer in
America, could be a start to reverse long-running declines in
union membership, which fell to 11% of the eligible workforce in
2020 from 20% in 1983, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
Whatever the results, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store
Union (RWDSU), which is trying to organize the employees, has
the same legal options as Amazon: challenge the eligibility of
individual voters or allege that coercive conduct tainted the
election.
In the latter case, the dispute would play out before the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and then likely in a
federal appeals court.
The vote count followed more than a week of challenges to
ballots during closed-door proceedings that could influence the
final result. Lawyers for Amazon and the union were allowed to
question ballots on suspicion of tampering, a voter's
eligibility and other issues.
The union says there have been hundreds of contested ballots,
making it unclear the number of votes needed to declare a
winner.
The NLRB, which is overseeing the election, would adjudicate
challenges in coming days.
Amazon for years has discouraged attempts among its more than
800,000 U.S. employees to organize, showing managers how to
identify union activity, raising wages and warning that union
dues would cut into pay, according to a prior training video,
public statements and the company's union election website.
Amazon has said it is following all NLRB rules and wants
employees to understand each side of the contest, and that the
RWDSU does not represent a majority of its employees’ views. The
company has said it wants as many of its employees to vote as
possible.
(Writing by Hilary Russ; editing by Peter Henderson and Leslie
Adler)
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