Why does the Amazon Alliance vote important

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can register here to receive it weekdays.

A lot depends on the results of a vote on whether to form a union at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala.

My colleague Karen Weise has described this as the most important merger effort in the history of Amazon. Ballots are being counted now with expected results within a few days. Karen talked to me about how the results can resonate far beyond this workplace.

Shira: Why is the union campaign get a lot of attention?

Karen: This is a temperature test of confidence in Amazon and its labor unions at a pivotal moment for both. Amazon is thriving and it created a staggering number of jobs last year, bringing its global workforce to around 1.3 million people today. And the question people ask is: Are these jobs as good as they could be? In a way, the union vote is a referendum on that question.

There is also a high deposit for labor unions. Their membership has generally declined in the United States for decades. And the question facing trade unions is: What role will they have, if any, in the workforce in the future? There is a lot of significance attached to the vote of nearly 6,000 Amazon employees near Birmingham.

What do these unionists say they want?

My colleague Michael Corkery and I have heard from Amazon employees that they don’t feel valued. They believe they are monitored on a regular basis to make sure they are meeting your productivity and work goals that can tire you out.

While Amazon’s salary is above the minimum wage, they say it’s not enough to compensate for what the job requires of them physically and with their supervision. A small proportion of workers believe a union gives them the right to change wages or working conditions.

And what does Amazon say?

Amazon’s point of view is that they pay high salaries for their workers – a starting salary of at least $ 15 an hour, compared to the federal minimum wage of $ 7.25 an hour in the US, which is also the salary. the minimum in Alabama. And Amazon says that workers are better off engaging directly with the company than through unions.

What are the expected results of this union vote?

Conventional wisdom is that the coalition will fail, so most experts are looking to see how tight the vote is. A thin vote against the union could still encourage labor organizers to try again in other Amazon workplaces. But if unions lose money by a large margin, Amazon will feel vindicated in its workplace operations and its stance on unions.

I wonder how to best explain what it means if the union vote in Bessemer fails. It can be difficult to distinguish how many employees are satisfied with their jobs and how many don’t think union is the solution, especially with Amazon’s message on the subject.

Why did this particular warehouse become the focus of a consolidation campaign? And why now?

The Birmingham area is described as more of the industrial regions of the Midwest than the South. It has a long history of strong steel and mining unions, and unions specifically engaged in the civil rights movement. About 85 percent of the staff in the Bessemer warehouse are Black, and union organizers have focused on issues of empowerment and racial equality.

And lately, workers’ fears about the health risks of the pandemic and the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement have left some employees feeling encouraged to ask for more from Amazon.

A part of Amazon’s location is it doing what people and politicians want companies to do: It creates more jobs and pays much more than its retail competitors. Has Amazon followed an unreasonable standard to do more than that?

Amazon certainly believes that, and it shows Walmart as a competitor with lower wages and benefits. But at its peak in growth, Walmart was also being scrutinized for changing the way we shop and pay and treat employees. Fast-growing companies naturally feel a lot of attention and pressure.

What do Amazon critics want it to do?

Amazon’s retail business is more profitable than many realize, but it reinvents a lot of its profits in new technologies like drones, Alexa or other innovations they do. I don’t know yet. Some workers are asking whether Amazon workers, the economy, and maybe the company itself would be better off if Amazon spent more on them.

They show examples of companies with different priorities. Costco, which employs nearly 200,000 people in the United States, recently said its average salary is $ 24 an hour and it has planned to increase its starting salary to $ 16 an hour.

(Amazon has said that a typical full-time employee in the United States has the equivalent of about $ 18 an hour in total compensation in 2019. That’s not a direct comparison to Costco’s numbers as it includes Technology and company employees are well paid, Costco disclosed not to.)

That salary is good for business, says the CEO of Costco.

(For more on this topic: Noam Scheiber has discussed why this vote is A major problem for labor unions. Astead Herndon wrote about Why was Biden involved. And a podcast from the Wall Street Journal featured the two Bessemer took opposing stances about the union.)

If you have not received this newsletter in your inbox, Please register here.

Before we go …

• It’s time to look at another web browser: I know, ugh. But my colleague Brian X. Chen makes a compelling case of switching to a browser like Brave or DuckDuckGo. They are similar to Chrome and Safari, but they block many technologies from tracking what we do online.

• The internal battle over a YouTube video: Several YouTube employees have asked the company to remove a music video with lyrics they claim contains Asian anti-racist content, Bloomberg News reported. YouTube has said it will not remove the artistic expression. Several employees have criticized the boss’s decision on internal sites, including mocking memes and references to Bloody Sunday in Selma.

• We’re haunted by tech billionaires, but uncomfortable about their power: Americans needed the rich during the pandemic, “in no small part because the slow response from the public sector created a leadership vacuum,” Recode wrote. It’s a thought-provoking article about the billionaire’s influence and our complex perceptions of them.

Hold this

this is a elaborate flapping of wings from a beautiful ruffled chicken. Thanks to my colleague Charlie Warzel for sharing this. (We’ve had a lot of bird videos in this space lately and I’m NOT sorry. The birds are awesome.)

We want to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this newsletter and what you want us to explore. You can contact us at [email protected]

If you have not received this newsletter in your inbox, Please register here.