Amazon put up anti-union signs Joseph Pisani
When Amazon found out that its workers were trying to form a union, the company put up signs across the warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, including in bathroom stalls, a worker said.
image for illustrative purpose
New York: When Amazon found out that its workers were trying to form a union, the company put up signs across the warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, including in bathroom stalls, a worker said. "No place was off-limits," said warehouse employee Jennifer Bates, who testified at a Washington hearing on income inequality. Bates, who supports the unionising effort, described on Wednesday how Amazon is pushing back against the biggest unionisation efforts at the company since its founding as an online bookstore in 1995.
Besides signs, she said Amazon sends messages to workers' phones and forces employees to attend meetings a couple of times a week that can go on for nearly an hour. "The company would just hammer on different reasons why the union was bad for us," Bates said. "If someone spoke up and disagreed with what the company was saying, they would just shut the meeting down." The stakes are high for Amazon.
If organisers succeed in Bessemer, it could set off a chain reaction across Amazon's operations nationwide, with more workers rising up and demanding better working conditions. Meanwhile, labour advocates are hoping a win at the Alabama facility could help push the labour movement in the South, which hasn't been hospitable to organised labour. But organisers face an uphill battle. Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the country, has a history of crushing unionising efforts at its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores.
