Amazon Reaches Union-Friendly Agreement with NLRB, while High Turnover May Help Company in Alabama Re-Vote

The Labor effort to organize Amazon fulfillment centers in the US, where none have yet to form a union despite the application of significant union resources, has become a major saga, with Amazon seeing both good and bad news is recent days.

First, as reported by the New York Times, in late December Amazon agreed to let its fulfillment center worker organize more easily as part of a nationwide settlement with the National Labor Relations Board.

Supply Chain Digest Says... Turnover over 100% is not uncommon at Amazon FCs. That means many workers the Retail, Wholesale s and Department Store Union is trying to persuade are likely not going to be there and eligible to vote whenever it scheduled. What do you say? Click here to send us your comments Click here to see reader feedback

Under the terms of the deal, Amazon agreed to email past and current fulfillment center workers with information about their rights under labor laws and make it a bit easier to pursue unionization in its facilities. It is thought the emails will go out to more than 1 million FC workers, including some 750,000 current employees.

Under the deal, Amazon agreed that it will not threaten workers with disciplinary reactions or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time.

The agreement also enhances the NLRB’s ability to sue Amazon if it believes the company violated the terms of the deal. Specifically, that settlement now allows the NLRB to bypass the usual administrative hearing process, a lengthy and onerous step.

The Times notes that while Amazon has in the past settled cases involving individual workers with the NLRB, the national scope of this agreement and its provisions for potential organization go further than any previous negotiations.

The agreement was the product of six Amazon workers who alleged the company had limited their ability to organize colleagues to form a union, according to the New York Times, which obtained a copy of the final document.

"Whether a company has 10 employees or a million employees, it must abide by the National Labor Relations Act," said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a statement. "This settlement agreement provides a crucial commitment from Amazon to millions of its workers across the United States that it will not interfere with their right to act collectively to improve their workplace by forming a union or taking other collective action."

Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Labor Center, told NPR that the settlement is "unprecedented" and that it represents a sea change in attitude at Amazon, which is known to use aggressive measures against union activity at its FCs.

The agreement comes as Amazon is under increasing pressure to improve working conditions, while at the same time the pandemic and ensuing labor shortages have given employees more leverage generally to fight for better working conditions and pay.

There was no comment on the agreement from Amazon. In the past, Amazon had said it supports the right to unionize, but believes workers are better off without unionizing.

(See More Below)

Does Turnover Rate Help Amazon is Second Union Vote at Alabama FC?

Meanwhile as SCDigest has reported extensively, after decisively winning the vote against unionization at an FC in Bessemer, Alabama in March 2021, an NLRB official in November ordered a second election at the facility after finding Amazon violated labor law during the first vote.

While the date for the new vote has not yet been set, the Wall Street Journal points out one interesting factor that may favor Amazon whenever it takes place: the high level of worker turnover at most Amazon facilities.

Turnover over 100% is not uncommon at Amazon FCs. That means many workers that the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union are trying to persuade now are likely not going to be there and eligible to vote whenever it scheduled.

Catherine Fisk, who specializes in labor at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Journal that turnover makes it more difficult for unions to gain and keep support from employees. She cited a separate union push in a New York City FC that was slowed partly because many of the workers who initially supported unionization stopped working at there.

“If it’s a constantly changing group of people who work there for a relatively short term, they don’t have the opportunity to hear from the union enough on why it would be in their best interest to support them,” Fisk also told the Journal.

Do you have any on this Amazon union news? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback button below (email) or in the Feedback section.