They can still challenge the results, but it looks like its over. 1798 against (1609 to get majority + 1).
It's not over, it's never over, but this was a loss and it does hurt.
And the neolib ghouls at the New York Times are absolutely preening themselves over it. Wait till they remember what unions were the compromise for :gui-better:
Yeah, but that was a boon for them- Amazon unionizing makes their one day dildo delivery more expensive.
Go ahead... ciriticize the one day dildo service. But... One day you might need it
sorry bro the average american is either a pro-capitalist liberal who thinks the c-suite executives and the billionaires are the pinnacle of sophistication and class or is a pro-capitalist semi-automatic toting right wing gun nut who would use their guns to "fight against marxism"
This article has already morphed a lot since I made this comment, but its original phrasing of "Amazon Workers Defeat Union Drive" and what a "crushing blow" it is to organized labor is gross. No mention of the dropbox fuckery, no explanation of what it means to contest the results or why the union might do that. First several comments pinned by NYT were also about how corrupt unions are. Idk maybe I just have brainworms at this point but it feels like the exact same way they covered any primary that Bernie lost -- unrestrained eagerness to paint the narrative that thing they want to lose (i.e. working people) was just utterly destroyed and has no hopes of recovery.
It’s disappointing, but man the publicity for this and the on going action by other Amazon workers really has gotten the ball rolling. This definitely isn’t over.
Yeah, the drivers are way more consistent on organizing. Just check the AmazonDSPdriver subreddit.YeahYeah
More than half the workforce abstained which is not a direct no. Only 1700/6000 were against the idea enough to vote on it. Almost 1000 voted yes even with threats of retaliation from Amazon.
This is very good for round one of a fight that's just starting and they have the upper hand in.
What happened to just doing the union? Since when did we all agree that unions can only exist through an election. 738 people in favor is a pretty sizable union.
American thing, they wanted NLRB certification (makes striking legal and a few other things). In the US, the union is also supposed to exclusively represent the entire shop that they organized in. So if the majority didn't want one, the NLRB won't certify, the union won't be able to exclusively represent the entire shop or bargain for workers or strike (
legally, sorry meant without scabs you can always strike for better conditions but employers are allowed to replace you without a union).They could seek some other kind of representation, like IWW organizing or minority unionizing, but there's even fewer legal protections for those people than what scraps of civil rights are afforded to unionizing through NLRB elections.
Not illegal in the sense they will send you to jail, illegal in the sense you have no protection against being fired. Obviously you can just not go to work
I think the election is to get the National Labor Relations Board to recognize it
I know dooming is fun, but the vote is much closer than it looks and they are already talking about holding another vote soon
Plus Amazon outright broke the law to get this result. The vote should be thrown out.
It is already heavily contested and might be thrown out entirely
A delivery station too the reason they're striking (the new 10 hour shifts) is a big complaint at my site and the others I know workers at. Shout out chicago
1798 people that need to be bullied.
Seriously things need to get very hostile and fight-ey internally now. Workers will have to fight to get these class traitors out in order to take control.
Trying for unionization is a good move for the workers at specific companies but I doubt it will ever lead towards an actual worker-led government in the US.
It's a terrible loss for the Amazon workers of course
I don't think anyone can predict how socialism will come about in America. It's just too different from all other contexts where we've seen success to use any of those successes as a blueprint. What might work is trying a bunch of different strategies and seeing a gain here produce a benefit there, and building on that.
It's hard to see how we go from here to socialism without seeing a significant increase in unionization though. Without organized worker power, we won't get there
They had a chance to potentially change the world, but gave it up in the face of corporate propaganda.
I get that a lot of the workers could've been scared of retaliation. Between some of the de-industrialization that's hit small towns so hard, the pandemic, and Amazon credibly able to just move towns if they did unionize, I get that it would've been... scary to vote yes. People are so precarious now, what's left in Bessemer? Driving for uber or working at walmart? No one is really watching out for them in Alabama or at the Federal level. I know people formed unions under worse circumstances, like the coal miners back in the 1900s, but in some ways things are even more precarious for workers now then they were then. There's high technology and pinkertons aren't out to literally crack skulls but there's no community resiliance, like if Amazon shuddered the warehouse in response people wouldn't have been able to survive off the limited retail jobs and/or community gardens and no one would show up to protect you from bankruptcy like they did during the '30s.
I dunno, kind of seems like people just don't have hope or faith that anything can change - or worse, that change is possible but if anything changes it'll only be worse. So the status quo is uncomfortable but even if we're pissing in bottles, even if I get docked 1 hours pay for being late 5 minutes, even if we have no say in how the workplace is run and get no respect from management or ownership, at least it's a stable-ish gig with some benefits if you can withstand the bullshit. I don't know how to break through that, that those workers deserve so much more than just getting by and that if they team up anything is possible.
Just getting people to believe that change for the better is possible seems like such an insurmountable task, never mind that we have such a limited horizon of action before climate change fucks everything up.
My hope was that if they did succeed, they would show all the other facilities it was indeed possible - give everyone the opportunity to try it themselves. They couldn't close every single facility. But yeah, the fear is real, and retaliation would definitely be a possibility. It's just so goddamn frustrating to watch capital win AGAIN.
