Recently, actor Danny Glover and Georgia politician Stacey Abrams voiced their support for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, who have been trying to unionize amid substandard and unsanitary conditions during the pandemic.
Employees at Amazon’s Bessemer fulfillment center, most of whom are Black, are currently voting until March 29 on whether to unionize. Amazon has repeatedly challenged their efforts by appealing to the National Labor Relations Board and claiming that the Bessemer group represents a small portion of its employees. Amazon’s bad faith actions are reflective of its traditional opposition to organized labor and long history of exploiting its employees — one that’s been made clear during the pandemic. Amazon’s long history of opposing unionization and ignoring continuous abuses and racial bias patterns in the context of dangerous working conditions has been exacerbated by poor health practices amid COVID-19.
Since its inception, Amazon, which currently has 1.13 million employees worldwide, has prevented union organizing at all costs. In 2000, the Communications Workers of America began a campaign to unionize 400 customer service employees. Amazon retaliated by closing the call center where they worked. A leaked Amazon training video from 2018 further revealed the company’s antipathy toward unions: "We are not anti-union, but we are not neutral either,” an animated man in a bright vest said in the video. “We do not believe unions are in the best interest of our customers or shareholders or, most importantly, our associates."
During the pandemic, the company faced increased attempts to unionize as working conditions deteriorated due to crowded workspaces and a subsequent lack of social distancing. These oversights by Amazon led to almost 20,000 domestic employees contracting the virus within the first six months of the pandemic. Additionally, at the time, there were at least 10 deaths due to COVID-19 among Amazon employees. In spite of these concerning numbers, Amazon did not prioritize the release of comprehensive data related to the COVID-19 outbreaks in its ranks. In regions with greater populations of racial and ethnic minorities and low-income individuals, such as Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, COVID-19 cases are at an all-time high. Health and social inequities, along with Amazon's record of employee mistreatment, has led to one of the largest pushes to unionize in Amazon history.
In a running document created by Amazon employees, workers have cited many experiences of discrimination in the workplace. These instances of mistreatment include patterns of racial bias, such as being passed over for promotions in favor of or treated differently than white individuals and being withheld from mentorship opportunities. Though Amazon’s leadership team has been holding “listening circles” with Black employees, workers like Johnnie Corina III, who filed a discrimination complaint against the company, reported a repeated failure to acknowledge racist graffiti in the bathrooms of a Los Angeles company warehouse.
In response to complaints from employees in Bessemer, Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski chose to minimize employees’ concerns, stating, “We encourage anyone to compare our overall pay, benefits, and workplace environment to any other company with similar jobs.”
The union drive at the Bessemer fulfillment center is nothing short of a fight for basic human rights. Employees have stated that they are unable to take water and bathroom breaks, as those few tracked minutes away from their work stations can mean the difference between employment and termination. At the Bessemer fulfillment center, employees are paid an hourly wage of around $15.3, which is below the local warehouse average of $18 per hour. Through unionizing, employees at Bessemer hope to achieve increased job security, fairer work treatment, better wages and shorter work hours.
This pandemic has worsened Amazon’s already untenable conditions. When more than a quarter of Amazon’s 500,000-person domestic workforce is composed of Black people, Amazon must do more to acknowledge their complaints and prioritize their employees’ safety, especially during COVID-19. And that starts with letting them unionize. Anything short of unionization constitutes an abusive infringement on workers’ rights.
The above editorial represents the majority opinion of the Wheel’s Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is composed of Sahar Al-Gazzali, Brammhi Balarajan, Viviana Barreto, Rachel Broun, Jake Busch, Sara Khan, Martin Shane Li, Sophia Ling, Demetrios Mammas, Meredith McKelvey, Sara Perez, Ben Thomas, Leah Woldai, Lynnea Zhang and Yun Zhu.
