Down the Amazon

It’s possible the union election at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, was over the day a group of supportive politicians visited the plant and were greeted with signs reminding them that these employees already had a $15 per hour minimum wage and good health care and were asked why they hadn’t done the same for workers everywhere!

Much ink has been spilt blaming imbalanced labor laws, intimidation charges, and the vast difference in resources between the two sides, but nothing explains away a 70/30 rout of those voting and an abstention rate of more than 50% except the workers didn’t want this union. The remaining question is what the result means for unions and for President Joe Biden and his prounion agenda.

It was only one election at one plant at a company that knows how to win elections, and it’s easy to make too much of it. But, not every union election draws the president’s vocal backing and bipartisan political pledges of support. As the warehouse’s workforce is largely black in a precinct that was deeply pro-Biden, you have to wonder what the lack of presidential influence means to the prospect for expanded union activity elsewhere.

Day of reckoning for unions