North Carolina Amazon Workers Vote on Fate of Unionization

For organizers at an Amazon warehouse in Garner, N.C., it’s vote-garnering time. 

Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE) is currently holding a vote to unionize; the election, which began on Monday, will conclude Saturday. 

Last month, the group received authorization from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to proceed with the election after proving it had enough union cards to do so. Organizers hope to garner pro-union votes from just over half of the employees in Amazon’s RDU1 warehouse, which is located outside of Raleigh, N.C. 

The union seeks increased wages, 180 hours of paid time off, paid sick leaves, one-hour paid lunch breaks and holiday bonuses. On the wage front, organizers have demanded a minimum wage of $30 an hour for all Tier 1 and Tier 2 associates, which are, by and large, lower-level jobs inside of the organization. 

According to Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards, employees in the RDU1 warehouse see a pay range between $18.50 and $23.80, but noted that the warehouse does not have a pay cap and that Amazon continues to increase its hourly wages annually. 

Hards said the company wants workers to interact with upper management rather than unionizing. 

“We’ve always said that we want our employees to have their voices heard, and we hope and expect this process allows for that. We believe our employees favor opportunities to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team,” Hards said in an emailed statement, noting that the company “already offers what many unions are requesting.” 

She went on to say that part of Amazon’s specific hesitation over unionization at this site is that “CAUSE has never negotiated a union contract anywhere and has no experience representing workers or their interests.” 

To that, CAUSE organizers said, “Duh! We’re an independent, associate-led body that started right here at RDU1. CAUSE is all of us, negotiating together. We have experienced labor leaders behind us.” 

Organizers like Reverend Ryan Brown have alleged that Amazon has filled the RDU1 warehouse with “anti-union propaganda” and has attempted to turn workers against one another in an effort to stymie unionization. 

“Amazon is taking advantage of the lack of oversight. They’re installing new TVs all over the warehouse, which play anti-union propaganda on a loop. They’re blacking out the windows so that workers can’t look at anything else on your breaks,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Inequality.org. “And they’ve installed metal detectors in new, odd, places. It’s downright Orwellian. We can’t do our jobs to get people their packages without being distracted by a barrage of propaganda.”

Hards did not deny that Amazon has presented employees with the option to join meetings that share information that may dissuade them from voting in favor of a union, but insisted that such meetings are not compulsory. 

“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union. We believe that both decisions should be equally protected which is why we talk openly, candidly and respectfully about these topics, actively sharing facts with employees so they can use that information to make an informed decision. These meetings are voluntary and that’s what we communicate to employees,” she said. 

Hards denied Brown’s allegation that Amazon blacks out warehouse windows.

But Brown said, despite Amazon’s apparent distaste for unionization in the South, CAUSE won’t quit. 

“Amazon knows that if we can win a union in North Carolina, we can win anywhere. That’s why they’re going overboard to try to stop us,” he wrote. 

Brown is far from the first to accuse Amazon of union busting. After the company made the decision to close a group of facilities in the Québec, Canada, area, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), organizers who led a successful vote to unionize in one of those facilities made it clear that the union would pursue legal action against the e-commerce behemoth. 

And Amazon has a history of fighting union activity, even without the unrest whipping through federal agencies. It has engaged in an arduous battle against workers who unionized a Staten Island, N.Y., warehouse. Last year, that union, known as the Amazon Labor Union, became affiliated with the Teamsters in an effort to force Amazon to the table to negotiate. To date, the parties have not arrived at an agreement. 

Brown said organizers know that Trump’s recent move to remove a member from the NLRB—so that the board is legally unable to issue decisions or enforce existing ones, given that it no longer has a quorum—could be a drawback for CAUSE. If the union garners the votes, the NLRB still has to certify the union as the employees’ representative for collective bargaining with Amazon. 

But Brown and his fellow organizers are just trying to hop the next hurdle first: winning this week’s election. 

“[We saw] record-breaking attendance at our membership meetings in the run up to this election. Everything I’m seeing shows that Amazon’s union-busting is backfiring, and driving people to vote yes,” he wrote. “We’ll find out after the voting. Until then, I’ll keep organizing.”