:format(jpg):watermark(cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/EF665FJJCNGHFFHRRMWR57UKMI.png,0,30,0)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/ipmgroup/SUVQYEVUYRDPPDD4ELD62IOU4Q.jpg "“It would be huge, it could inspire other workers”: these Amazon workers who are trying to create a union in the United States")
Christian Smalls no longer works at the JFK8 Amazon warehouse in New York but goes there every day, to talk with his former colleagues at the bus stop. His goal: to convince them to vote for the creation of a union. The e-commerce giant, one of the largest employers in the United States, has so far succeeded in repelling the desires of employees wishing to regroup in the country.
He is currently facing three attempts at the same time.
In New York, 5,000 employees of the JFK8 distribution center are called to vote from March 25 to 30, with the counting of votes beginning on March 31. Some 1,500 employees of the warehouse located across the street, called LDJ5, will be able to express themselves from April 25 to 29.
Further south in Alabama, more than 6,000 workers at the Bessemer site have until March 25 to return their ballots by mail. Counting is due to begin on March 28 and could take one to two weeks. A vote had already taken place there last year, with a vast majority of voters then rejecting the creation of a union. But the labor rights agency NLRB said Amazon broke some rules and ordered a new election.
A lot of awareness work
Christian Smalls, 33, was fired in March 2020, just after organizing a demonstration demanding more protection against a virus then still little known. Unemployed, he chooses to continue to testify to his experience and to campaign for the protection of essential workers. Just after the failure of the vote in Bessemer, he decided in April 2021, with some former colleagues, to embark on the union adventure and create Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
“I know I’m on the right side of the battle”, he told AFP in mid-March. About twenty volunteers are then gathered in a meeting room to call, one by one, the employees of the warehouse and explain to them what a union is and what they demand, on wages, working conditions, job security, leave.
It was following a similar phone call that Isaiah Thomas, 20, got involved in the organizing committee in Bessemer. After last year’s failure, the union supporting the battle, the RWDSU, waged an outreach campaign there, going door to door and meeting employees during breaks.
He started working at Amazon in 2020, to finance his studies.
“I immediately realized that there were changes to be made”, he told AFP. On safety, on cadences, on break times for example. But like many young people, “I didn’t really know what a union was” before this phone call, he adds.
David versus Goliath
Amazon for its part, in Bessemer as in New York, tried to dissuade the employees, in particular summoning them to mandatory meetings.
“Our employees have the choice whether or not to join a union. They always have had it”, assured a spokesperson for the group, Kelly Nantel, in a message to AFP. But the company “do not think that unions are the best solution for our employees”she adds.
If one of the unions wins, “that would be huge and could inspire other Amazon workers”, which the multinational seeks to avoid, argues Ruth Milkman, labor sociologist at CUNY University. She is not, however, “not optimistic”: American law clearly favors employers and makes any attempt to unionize difficult, she explains, referring to the fight of David against Goliath.
In New York, ALU has chosen to remain independent and therefore does not have many means to counter Amazon’s efforts, notes Ruth Milkman. Its only resources are crowdfunding campaigns. And to Bessemer, “there aren’t many alternatives to jobs at Amazon”, she adds. The minimum wage, at $15.80 an hour, is twice as high as the official minimum wage.
In its information meetings on the consequences of the creation of a union, the company brandishes the risk of losing its job and in this context, remarks Ruth Milkman, “you can be intimidated by the employer’s propaganda (…) and think twice before taking this risk”.
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