As of March 29th, 2021, voting had halted in the Alabama Amazon warehouse which has quickly become the center of conversations centering on the importance of unions nationwide. Currently, around 10% of American workers have their wages set through collective bargaining, a negotiation that happens between a union and a firm (Blanchard, 2014, pg. 143). This vote holds significance as it could be Amazon’s first unionized American warehouse, and the precedent set in this case will undoubtedly affect the second-largest private employer’s 800,000 employees across the entire United States. Per the Economic Policy Institute, one can see that there is a definite correlation between union membership and income inequality (Rhinehart and McNicholas, 2020).
This study found that higher density of unions has positive impacts on employees who are not members of unions, and firms that have high union density despite the numerous barriers set in place through U.S. labor law to inhibit unionization have on average 5% higher wages for non-college-educated non-unionized workers, with wages 8% higher for their college-educated coworkers who were not unionized (Rhinehart and McNicholas, 2020). The reasoning for this is not known definitely, but it is theorized that this could be due to greater rates of transparency regarding wages in workplaces that have regular conversations amongst employees with unions about their wages and collective bargaining power(Rhinehart and McNicholas, 2020). This transparency begins to explain the union-busting behavior that Amazon has been accused of, with potential unionization nationwide posing a risk of increased wages that Amazon would be required to pay to its numerous employees.
The presence of unions improving overall wellbeing for the working class is not an isolated incidence. A study published in March of this year found that states that have fewer boundaries for the creation of unions experience higher levels of economic growth and individual earnings (Warner and Xu 2021). Despite this, union membership has fallen consistently over the past decades, especially with austerity measures on both the state and local levels since the 2007 recession (Warner and Xu 2021), likely due to the union-busting behaviors that large corporations had adopted in recent years. Claims from employees to the National Labor Relations Board regarding Amazon’s interference with their workers’ right to organize more than tripled since the beginning of the pandemic. Most recently, Amazon chose to settle after evidence emerged corroborating claims that they filed harassment charges against an employee for attempting to unionize (Solon 2021). In this settlement, Amazon was required to advertise both physically and electronically the right to organize for their workers. This did not deter Amazon from attempting to sway their workers' opinion on unionization in recent weeks (Solon 2021). Mandatory meetings were held with employees for Amazon officials to state their anti-union rhetoric, along with mailers, texts, tweets, and even Twitch advertisements being used to further their appeals for employees to vote against a union (Palmer, 2021).
The Economic Policy Institute notes that bargaining power continues to decline for unions as enrollment decreases, and will likely continue to do so until there are systemic changes at the national level that sets meaningful penalties for interfering with workers' rights to organize and unionize. One potential piece of legislation that is aiming to protect workers is the PRO (Protecting the Right to Organize) Act, which further strengthens the ability for workers to unionize. This bill has passed in the House of Representatives but has not yet been seen by the Senate. If enacted, this bill would have prevented Amazon from having legal standing to participate in representation proceedings, captive audience meetings from Amazon would have been prohibited, and the union would have had more economic weapons such as intermittent strikes and production slowdowns to enact leverage(Magner 2021). Nonetheless, the bargaining power of these Amazon workers is evident. Amazon sales are at an all-time high during the pandemic as households opt to order online and avoid in-person shopping. The warehouse workers do much of this labor and cannot be replaced quickly enough to prevent a major financial impact on Amazon. As news reports on the massive financial gains that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has obtained during the pandemic emerge, workers are more confident in demanding higher wages for the labor he is profiting off of. Regardless of the outcome of the union vote in Alabama that will be announced in the coming days, the mere existence of this vote represents a changing tide of workers’ opinion on unionization, and this vote is likely to spur the organization of possible unions in the future for Amazon warehouses and other large production facilities across the country.
Works Cited
“Actions - H.R.2474 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Protecting the Right to Organize Act of 2019.” Congress.gov, 2019, www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2474/actions. Accessed 31 Mar. 2021.
Knepper, Matthew. “From the Fringe to the Fore: Labor Unions and Employee Compensation.” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 102, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 98–112. EBSCOhost, doi:http://www.mitpressjournals.org.ezproxy.plu.edu/loi/rest.
Magner, Brandon. “The Amazon Union Drive in Alabama Would’ve Looked Very Different under the pro Act.” Jacobinmag.com, 2021, jacobinmag.com/2021/03/amazon-union-drive-pro-act-bessemer-alabama. Accessed 31 Mar. 2021.
Palmer, Annie. “Amazon’s Aggressive PR Campaign ahead of Union Vote Shows How Worried It Is, Labor and Antitrust Experts Say.” CNBC, CNBC, 29 Mar. 2021, www.cnbc.com/2021/03/29/amazons-pr-campaign-ahead-of-union-vote-shows-how-worried-it-is.html. Accessed 30 Mar. 2021.
Rhinehart, Lynn and Celine McNicholas. “Collective Bargaining beyond the Worksite: How Workers and Their Unions Build Power and Set Standards for Their Industries.” Economic Policy Institute, 2020, www.epi.org/publication/collective-bargaining-beyond-the-worksite-how-workers-and-their-unions-build-power-and-set-standards-for-their-industries/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2021.
Solon, Olivia, et al. “Fired, Interrogated, Disciplined: Amazon Warehouse Organizers Allege Year of Retaliation.” NBC News, NBC News, 30 Mar. 2021, www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/fired-interrogated-disciplined-amazon-warehouse-organizers-allege-year-retaliation-n1262367. Accessed 31 Mar. 2021.
Warner, Mildred, et al. “Productivity divergence: state policy, corporate capture and labour power in the USA.” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, March 21 2021, DOI: 10.1093/cjres/rsaa040
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