The future shape of Amazon, and of many technology companies across the US, may well be hanging on a union vote count now unfolding in an Alabama town.
In Bessemer, Alabama, 6,000 workers at one of Amazon's vast warehouses are deciding whether to unionise. The action signals a dramatic point of tension between two disparate working worlds – on the one hand, the resoundingly non-unionised tech sector, in which Amazon is seen as a bellwether, and the more traditionally unionised, manual-labour warehouse and delivery sectors.
A larger industry fear is that a ripple effect could move across to the higher-paid technology workers in other parts of Amazon and on to the broader tech sector
Like many technology companies, Amazon has been hostile to unions. It campaigned hard against the only other attempt to unionise, an unsuccessful effort in 2014 by maintenance workers in Delaware. But much has changed since then. Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos have been much enriched by a year of pandemic shopping in which millions opted for the ease of Amazon's one-stop online shop. Profits rose 84 per cent in 2020 and Bezos's personal wealth grew by a staggering $70 billion. By contrast, Amazon warehouse workers make about $15 an hour. Amazon has argued that this is significantly above the US federal minimum wage of $7.25, and that it also offers workers health insurance and other benefits.
Basic welfare support
But Amazon critics note the wage falls well short of that paid to unionised warehouse and delivery workers generally. And many US Amazon workers demonstrably cannot survive on Amazon's warehouse wages. According to a report from the US government accountability office, 4,000 Amazon employees across nine states examined, required federal food stamp aid. Only employees at Wal-Mart, McDonalds and the US equivalent of euro shops are more likely to need this basic welfare support.
Warehouse workers also have become increasingly vocal about working conditions they condemn as inhumane. Employees say they put in long hours under constant productivity surveillance and can be penalised for taking toilet or snack breaks. Amazon’s swelling ranks of warehouse employees also have staged public protests over crowded pandemic work environments.
If the Bessemer workforce votes to unionise, it will be able to bargain for better work conditions and pay, and other sites may well be galvanised to unionise. Amazon’s worst fear would be having to engage with the collective power of hundreds of thousands of basic-level but essential workers.
A larger industry fear is that a ripple effect could move across to the higher-paid technology workers in other parts of Amazon and on to the broader tech sector. The time is certainly ripe: tech workers everywhere have grown increasingly frustrated and demanding of a voice around issues ranging from race and gender equality, to their employers’ controversial military contracts or surveillance-based business models.