The union, sensibly defeated in its efforts to organize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, is attempting to dismiss the election results and accusing the company of corrupting the voting process by intimidating and monitoring workers.
On Monday, the retail, wholesale and department store union appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw the voting process via email last month.
The union lost its offer to organize the camp at a ratio of more than 2 to 1. Many workers said the union had not convinced them of the benefits of the organization and that they were largely satisfied with Amazon’s wages, benefits and working conditions.
In a statement on Monday, Amazon said: “Instead of accepting the choice of these employees, the union seems determined to continue to misrepresent the facts in order to advance its own agenda. We look forward to the next steps in the legal process. “
At the center of the union’s complaint is a mailbox that Amazon installed in the warehouse parking lot, where workers can cast their ballot papers. The union said Amazon brought the collection box without permission from the labor authority. The company also used video cameras to monitor workers who cast their ballots there and encouraged them to toss the ballots in the box instead of mailing them from home, the union said.
The union said these actions by Amazon “created the impression that the collection box was a polling station and that the employer had control over the conduct of postal votes”.
The union also accused Amazon of other tactics that may have intimidated the workers, such as hiring local police to patrol the parking lot while the organizers were outside and possibly pulling union-friendly workers out of the “captured audience” meetings that did the Company had held to raise the issue of organizing the ride among employees.
The company “would require the employee to come forward, identify them and then remove them from the meeting in the presence of hundreds of other employees, thereby compromising and / or chilling the employees’ right to freely discuss issues related to the union organizing campaign will, ” said the union in its filing with the labor authority.
The union has asked the Labor Authority to hold a hearing on their petition in order to overturn the results. If the union succeeds in its legal challenges, the labor authority could order another election to be held.
