{"id":106829,"date":"2014-01-24T01:24:48","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T01:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=106829"},"modified":"2014-01-24T01:24:48","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T01:24:48","slug":"amazon-continues-get-away-abusing-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/amazon-continues-get-away-abusing-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"How Amazon Continues to Get Away With Abusing Its Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The inside story of how the retail giant has managed to remain union-free across the United States.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Josh Eidelson
\nRINF Alternative News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

After Amazon vanquished a rare U.S. union effort last week in a 21-to-6 vote, keeping the retail giant union-free across the United States, a union spokesperson blamed that result on a corporate campaign to make workers fear for their jobs \u2013 and told Salon a much larger union campaign could be ahead at Amazon.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything Amazon did had the underlying tone of fear,\u201d said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers spokesperson John Carr.<\/p>\n

Amazon did not respond to a Tuesday request for comment on the result and the allegations. Company spokesperson Mary Osako\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0CNN that the January 15 \u201cvote against third-party representation\u201d showed workers \u201cprefer a direct connection with Amazon,\u201d which she called \u201cthe most effective way to understand and respond to the wants and needs of our employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carr said that the IAM is still reviewing whether it had sufficient evidence to file charges alleging law-breaking by Amazon in the lead-up to the vote among a handful of mechanics at a Delaware warehouse. Under federal law, it\u2019s\u00a0generally<\/a>\u00a0illegal for companies to explicitly punish or threaten workers for supporting a union, but legal to hold mandatoryanti-union meetings<\/a>\u00a0and to make \u201cpredictions\u201d about dire consequences that could result from unionization. With the help of the firm Morgan Lewis, contended Carr, the company used such \u201ccaptive audience\u201d meetings to \u201cput an intense amount of pressure on these workers,\u201d and thus \u201cof course they feared for their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single day there was a new sort of rumor mill, or means of mis-portraying, misinformation \u2014 that we\u2019ll have to ship this work somewhere else, you name it,\u201d alleged Carr. In particular, he said, the Delaware facility had \u201cplans to make lots and lots of expansion,\u201d and \u201cI think they made it pretty clear that that\u2019s just not going to happen\u201d with a union. \u201cThey beat around the bush in doing it,\u201d he added, \u201cand I think they were very careful not to cross the line, but you know they plant that seed, put that thought in those workers\u2019 mind.\u201d In order to discourage workers from opening the door to union organizers who visited them at home, said Carr, \u201cAmazon put out a posting that we were going to come during the holidays, and that they had the right to call the police if we didn\u2019t leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

While the number of signatures on the pro-union petition that triggered the vote was nearly as large as the total number that voted last week, said Carr, the only six who voted for the union come election day appear to be the same \u201ccore group that started this campaign.\u201d Carr argued that if \u2014 as organized labor urged in Obama\u2019s first term \u2014 Congress had required companies to recognize unions once a majority of workers sign their names in support, \u201cthese folks would have a union right now. But you know, the companies just hold all the cards going into these elections. They\u2019ve got the workers \u2014 they\u2019ve got them every day\u2026There\u2019s no better fear tactic than the threat of their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Research by Cornell\u2019s Kate Bronfenbrenner\u00a0contends<\/a>\u00a0that companies hold \u201ccaptive audience\u201d meetings in 89% of National Labor Relations Board unionization election campaigns; threaten plant closing in 57%; and fire union activists in 34%. As I\u2019ve\u00a0reported<\/a>, the specter of a shift in production has dramatically strengthened the hand of the aerospace giant Boeing in its dealings with the IAM, which this month agreed to a controversial pension freeze as the price of keeping a new line of aircraft in Washington State. In Germany, where workers at a third of Amazon\u2019s nine distribution centers staged December work stoppages in hopes of bringing the company to the table, CNN\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that over 1,000 employees \u201chave signed an anti-union petition amid community worries that jobs could be moved elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

The night the Delaware results were announced, Carr told Salon, those who\u2019d voted for the union \u201cwere a bit broken in spirit, in a way \u2014 you\u2019re always that way when you lose.\u201d But he said that by night\u2019s end, the consensus among the activist mechanics was, \u201cAll right, one year\u201d \u2014 the period until they\u2019d be eligible, absent a government finding of wrongdoing by Amazon, to file for a new unionization election. \u201cLet\u2019s get ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, said Carr, \u201cmy phone was ringing off the hook the next day\u201d with calls from the warehouse\u2019s much larger population of packers and shippers, asking about a unionization effort of their own.<\/p>\n

Asked if the IAM planned to mount such a campaign, Carr the union would meet with interested packers and shippers, and what happened next would depend on \u201cthe showing of interest\u201d by employees. Given that \u201cthese campaigns aren\u2019t cheap,\u201d he said, \u201cto make that commitment I think you\u2019re going to have to have a real measure of what the support is.\u201d He added that \u201cif it gets bad enough, and folks keep getting fired, or people keep getting hurt,\u201d agitation at Amazon could grow. In investigations by\u00a0The Morning Call<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The Seattle Times<\/a>\u00a0(published in 2011 and 2012, respectively), current or former Amazon warehouse workers alleged \u201cbrutal heat\u201d; firings that \u201cencouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury\u201d; and \u201cpressure to manage injuries so they would not have to be reported to OSHA.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IAM\u2019s Carr said that organizing the small unit of Delaware mechanics \u201cwasn\u2019t\u2026a strategic target where we put on a long, sustainable campaign,\u201d but rather a response to a plea for assistance from the half dozen workers who\u2019d \u201cgot together themselves\u201d and reached out to the union. The initial \u201cindication,\u201d said Carr, was \u201cthat these guys were ready to go,\u201d and \u201cthe early meetings for support were all positive,\u201d and so the IAM moved quickly to submit the petition for the election to be held. \u201cThings began to turn after we filed,\u201d Carr told Salon. He acknowledged that the union \u201cdidn\u2019t give itself a lot of time to, well, educate, I guess, the remainder of the group.\u201d He added, \u201cI almost feel as if a longer campaign would\u2019ve been better. But you know, they were ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we go back,\u201d Carr told Salon, \u201cI think you\u2019re gonna have to measure the support all over again, and take the time hopefully to meet with more workers on a face-to-face basis.\u201d He added, \u201cit would\u2019ve been nice, I believe, to make two or three attempts to get them to talk to you\u201d through visits to workers\u2019 homes. Amazon, he said, \u201cplayed hardball. And you know, that\u2019s kind of the way a campaign will go in the future as well. So we\u2019ll have to be ready for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Carr said the IAM would be on the lookout for signs of management cracking down on the workers who led the failed election effort. \u201cWe\u2019ll make sure that they\u2019re not retaliated against,\u201d he told Salon. But, asked to elaborate, he said, \u201cIf they retaliate\u2026there won\u2019t be anything we can do other than file the charge [with the National Labor Relations Board] and offer the support that we can to that individual, or whoever, if they could take action\u2026We\u2019ll have to proceed accordingly. But there\u2019s nothing we can do to prevent it\u2026We\u2019re staying in touch, I guess is what I should say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Josh Eidelson<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0Nation\u00a0contributor and was a union organizer for five years. He covers labor as a contributing writer at\u00a0Salon and\u00a0In These Times.\u00a0Check out his\u00a0blog<\/a>\u00a0or follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The inside story of how the retail giant has managed to remain union-free across the United States. Josh Eidelson RINF Alternative News After Amazon vanquished a rare U.S. union effort last week in a 21-to-6 vote, keeping the retail giant union-free across the United States, a union spokesperson blamed that result on a corporate campaign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-106829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}