04/09/2021
Vote counting started today in the historic union election in Bessemer, Alabama. With 1,100 “No” votes, 463 “Yes” votes, and over 50% of ballots left to be counted tomorrow, the union drive is heading towards a devastating defeat. Amazon’s unimaginable wealth and power, which has exploded since COVID while millions have gone hungry, was unleashed in Bessemer to crush the effort to form the first union at Amazon in the U.S. They knew that a victory in Bessemer would unleash a tidal wave of organizing efforts at Amazon facilities across the country. They knew that Amazon workers organizing in their own interests was a direct threat to their brutal profit-making-machine. That’s why they pulled no punches in stopping the union drive. But this defeat is certainly not the end of the battle in Bessemer, or the end of the battle between working people and Amazon.
Amazon stole this election. They pressured city officials to change traffic light patterns at the warehouse gates to stop union organizers talking to workers. They relentlessly pressured USPS to install an illegal mailbox at the warehouse, and then lied to workers about the deadline to vote so they would cast ballots early - before union organizers could reach them. They lied to workers about what a union is, said that it would hurt business and force them to close the warehouse. They spent what’ll likely amount to millions in union-busting consulting fees and organized an ongoing barrage of captive-audience meetings to inoculate workers against the union. They followed up with hundreds of anti-union text messages.
Workers at BHM1 began this union drive because while Jeff Bezos was making $90 billion during the pandemic, Amazon workers were dying from contracting COVID-19 on the job, collapsing from inhumane productivity requirements, and peeing in bottles to avoid being punished or fired by the company’s barbaric “Time Off Task” tracking system. Amazon knows exactly what a union really is: it’s workers standing shoulder to shoulder to say they won’t tolerate the unbridled exploitation anymore.
Amazon fought because they’re terrified of what Bessemer workers organizing can inspire. They’re terrified of the over one thousand Amazon workers across the country who have reached out to unions about organizing at their warehouses, and they’re terrified of Amazon workers in Italy who are on strike over working conditions, because the company knows the power of its workers - they create the profits being hoarded by Bezos and the billionaire class. The union will rightly appeal this loss and fight for a new election because Amazon broke countless laws, but this could take months, if not years.
Leading workers in the Bessemer campaign face a serious threat of retaliation; Amazon doesn’t want them around for round two. All the reasons to organize still exist and our enemy has shown its strength. We don’t respond by giving up, we respond by getting even more organized, preparing to fight any retaliation that the bosses cook up, fighting with everything against Amazon’s anti-union propaganda at BHM1, and convincing workers everywhere that we can win a union and better conditions.
Watch out in the coming days for the lies the bosses want us to swallow. They want us to believe that Amazon is too big to beat, that winning unions is too hard. This will demoralize some people. But many will be filled with rage, because it’s not just Amazon. Workers everywhere are suffering, and found hope in this inspiring union drive because they need a union too. While Amazon has the money, we have the people, and we’ll be stronger in the next round. Bezos, this is just the beginning.
