in the United States, Amazon grants a promotion limited to its employees – Release

Criticized for the inhuman working conditions in its warehouses, and under the threat of seeing unions finally enter, the online sales giant announced Thursday a compromise with the national labor agency. A historic agreement by its magnitude – more than a million workers targeted – but whose concrete scope risks being only symbolic.–

Wednesday evening, Times Square, New York. Dozens of past and present Amazon employees are gathered, dressed as Santa Claus elves, to share their worst experiences of online sales galley slaves over the megaphone and become one in this outlet in the form of clamor: «If we don’t get it, shut it down !» – “If we do not succeed, let it close”. Achieve what? To form a recognized collective organization, conducive to defending the rights and interests of the thousands of workers who work in each warehouse of the world leader in e-commerce. And in this case that of Staten Island, in New York – since the union battles and collective bargaining are being played out by place in the United States – where the demonstrators on Wednesday had just restarted a procedure leading to an internal vote to constitute a union.

Barely fifteen hours later, Amazon announced that it had reached a historic agreement with the National Labor Agency (NLRB). A convention supposed to allow all of its some 750,000 employees in the United States to federate more easily, even though the company has been repeatedly pinned for its anti-union maneuvers – going for example as far as altering the locations and timing of traffic lights, or bus schedules, to disrupt employee coordination efforts in warehouse areas, where any promotion of union activity was outlawed and stalked. The compromise also provides for the end of the much maligned “fifteen-minute rule” which until now has hindered interactions between employees by only allowing them to be in their workplace, rest rooms and parking spaces included, for only a quarter of a day. hour before or after their working hours.

Ceasefire Promise

If its concrete effects remain to be demonstrated, this resolution is in any case of an unparalleled magnitude, since it reflects the place occupied by the company in the American and world economy (second largest employer in United States after Walmart, for $ 152 billion in declared profits in 2020): Amazon must now send a notification of their rights to current and recent employees of its warehouses in the United States, an estimated target of more than 1.5 million people.

It may seem like a hand extended to numerous employees denouncing inhuman management and unacceptable working conditions. However, it would be fairer to see it as a promise of a ceasefire for the time being. And will it only be held? Amazon declined to comment on the news Thursday, but its latest statements reiterated its rejection of unions and its belief that employees would be better served without a representative structure to negotiate wages and terms of their jobs on their behalf.

“It’s really impressive, such a national agreement, which affects so many employees, judges a seasoned executive from a large American union, solicited by Release. But everything suggests that it only happens because the NLRB has collected a lot of complaints and, had it gone to court with the consolidated complaints, Amazon would have had a lot more to lose, with arguably hefty fines, and perhaps even the obligation to recognize unions regardless of the results of internal votes. This agreement is therefore there in a logic of lower losses for Amazon. But if the company does not respect the terms, the labor agency will then be all the more justified in obtaining compensation for the employees. ”

Fierce backfire

Regardless, this all echoes a nationwide wave of workers’ demands, often fueled by the deterioration in workplace safety since the start of the pandemic and the ensuing exasperation. In early December, while at another giant, Starbucks, an establishment managed for the very first time to form a union despite a relentless campaign by the company to dissuade voters (read the report by Release on site), the NLRB relaunched the procedure of Amazon employees in Bessemer, Alabama, foiled last April by the empire of Jeff Bezos. Actively supported by Bernie Sanders and, more implicitly, by Joe Biden himself, this most advanced unionization attempt in the history of the group had sparked fierce backfires, which the labor agency now believes ‘They were therefore at least partly illegal – but Amazon, whose internal espionage of employees who were too pro-union or environmentalist was documented at the end of 2020 by the leak of its own internal reports, has said its intention to appeal.

While a new vote should take place within a few weeks, Bessemer employees still denounced Wednesday in a video posted on social networks a work environment of such hardness that six employees of their warehouse would have died there in one year, including two in less than twenty-four hours at the end of November. One of them would have succumbed on the spot to a cardiac arrest after being refused, for lack of sufficient credit for “self-employed break time”, the possibility of returning home. In June, a study carried out by a coalition of unions had already pointed out not only the 2.5 times higher risk for Amazon employees of contracting injuries at work than those of other companies in the sector, but also a management whose he obsession with speed confined workers to endangerment or in a situation of physical pain for fear of being punished or even dismissed.

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