Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo
An Amazon worker delivers boxes in downtown Los Angeles, October 1, 2020.
Amazon workers at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, have been given clearance to hold an election to form a union, setting up a labor battle against historically anti-union Amazon to unionize the first warehouse at Amazon in the U.S.
On November 20, workers at Amazon BHM1, the Bessemer warehouse, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The bargaining unit of 1,500 employees would not include truck drivers, seasonal employees, temporary employees, or those in supervisor and managerial positions.
The union declined to comment for this story. But in interviews, current and former Amazon workers at BHM1 have explained the widespread fear of retaliation for openly being involved with the union.
Workers cited rates for picking items for delivery as high as 400 per hour or 2,500 per day. The rates have increased as Amazon’s peak holiday season has begun, even as coronavirus cases have constantly been reported among workers at the warehouse. “It’s kind of impossible to hit rates, we just do the best that we can. If we don’t meet rates, we get threatened to get demoted to the position where we started … They threaten you or you can get fired,” said an Amazon employee at BHM1 who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.
“It’s been frustrating. Every day there’s a new rule or something different we have to do,” they said. “People have been threatened with getting fired if they find out they’re involved with the union.”
A former Amazon employee at BHM1 noted that workers are forced to sign nondisclosure agreements before getting hired, which restricts them from sharing information on Amazon’s operations publicly. An Amazon spokesperson acknowledged the NDAs are part of hiring paperwork.
“The agreements we sign for employment bind us to not tell too much,” said the former employee. “Even when I quit, I got an email reminding me of our agreement.”
The Bessemer warehouse first opened on March 29, 2020, one of several Amazon has needed to scale up their operations. The coronavirus pandemic has driven increased demand for online retailers such as Amazon, which has seen record profits. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his wealth increase since the pandemic hit from $113 billion to $184 billion, as of December 7.
“They work you to death,” said Sara Marie Thrasher, who worked as a “stower,” an employee who stocks items in warehouses before they’re ordered by customers, at Amazon BHM1 in October and November 2020, before she claimed she was fired via email without warning. “It’s crowded. Sometimes you can’t even find a station. We would get reprimanded if our stowing time was above 20 seconds or higher, with rates needing to be done in 8 seconds per item.”
Thrasher explained that bathroom breaks were available, but that taking one would negatively impact your stowing rate, and if there were no stowing stations available, she would be placed in different departments without any training.
“One day I didn’t have a spot so they put me outbound,” she said, referring to departments that pick, pack, and ship orders. “I’ve never been trained making huge boxes. Then I was moved to raking packages from machines. I got moved four times that day. I had my watch on, which said I walked 12 miles and 50 flights of stairs, because I had to rake five stations alone,” she added.
Amazon did not provide comment on Thrasher’s termination or claims, or provide information on the warehouse’s attrition rate since it opened earlier this year.
Byron Tollison, another former stower at Amazon BHM1 from August to October 2020, said the starting wage of $15 an hour was enticing, but the work environment was awful.
“It was almost set up like a sweatshop,” Tollison said. “Turnover rate is extremely high, where they would have at least 50 new people coming through every two weeks.”
“If we don’t meet rates, we get threatened to get demoted to the position where we started.”
Amazon has strongly opposed union and worker organizing efforts in the U.S. In September 2018, an anti-union training video for managers at Amazon-owned Whole Foods was leaked, shortly after a group of Whole Foods workers publicly announced the formation of Whole Worker, a group intent on forming a union. In April 2020, Business Insider reported that Whole Foods uses heat mapping to track risks of unionization. Documents leaked in a recent Vice News report showed that Amazon spies on warehouse workers and tracks labor unions throughout Europe.
“The working conditions are horrible is all I’m willing to say,” added another Amazon BHM1 employee, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I support a union coming aboard, we need them badly.”
In response to the union organizing drive in Alabama, Amazon hired former Republican National Labor Relations Board member Harry Johnson to represent the company in the case.
The NLRB ruled in favor of permitting the union election to move forward and scheduled a hearing to resolve the terms of the union election which began on December 18, denying Amazon’s effort to delay the hearing by at least a month. A union election date has yet to be set, though the petition requested sometime between December 27 and December 30.
“We respect our employees’ right to join or not join a labor union but we don’t believe this group represents the majority of our employees’ views,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an email.
In regard to performance metrics, they added, “Like most companies, we have performance expectations for every Amazonian—be it corporate employee or fulfillment center associate, and we measure actual performance against those expectations.”
Amazon also claimed performance variations aren’t influenced by demand or time of year. Amazon would not provide coronavirus case numbers at the BHM1 warehouse, but cited a variety of safety measures that have been implemented across Amazon’s network.
