The tough fight to unionize Amazon

Yahoo

17-03-2025

Organizers rally across from Garner's Amazon warehouse on Saturday February 8, 2025 -- two days prior to the start of a union election. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)
The number of U.S. workers belonging to a union fell to a record low of 9.8% this past year. Despite scattered victories like Starbucks unionization, the labor movement is a shadow of the brawny force it once was in American society.
The recent vote at Amazon's giant RDU1 facility in Garner underscores the obstacles to resurrecting unionism. A grassroots worker-led group called Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE) fought successfully for a union election, but it lost the vote last month by an almost three-to-one. Just one of Amazon's more than 1,500 U.S. facilities, JFK8 on Staten Island, has voted to unionize – and the company still refuses to recognize those results.
I had a first-hand view of the Garner election and its lessons for labor organizing. As an anthropologist studying Amazon, I worked in its warehouses for two years, loading trucks at RDU1. Witnessing the sweatshop conditions there led me to join CAUSE and its spunky yet failed fight to unionize the facility.
At least in theory, the time is ripe for labor organizing. A recent poll shows seventy percent of Americans approve of labor unions, weary of corporate greed and drone jobs.
Although unions will not solve everything, working people need the benefits they can bring more than ever. The titans of 21st century commerce like Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald's enforce brutal work rates through the so-called electronic whip of algorithmic management and the threat of firing. Old fashioned generosities like holiday bonuses and paid sick days have been cut to keep costs down.
The big companies have made poverty pay the new norm. At RDU1, you make a few dollars more than cashiering at Dollar General cashiering or assembling Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, but the $18.50 hourly starting pay is less than half the $42.64 an hour that economists estimate as necessary for an adult with a child to get by in the greater Raleigh area. Some RDU1 workers sleep in their cars to save rent money — and this when Amazon cofounder Jeff Bezos banks a surreal $7.9 million an hour with his private jets, super yacht, and multiple mansions.
Unionizing a gigantic 21st century warehouse with more than 4,000 workers is daunting. What economists call 'the churn' of high worker turnover complicates solidarity-building. So does the heterogeneity of the work force at a place like RDU1 between its hip-hop princes, queer young Latinas and tractor-cap Trumpies along with migrants from more than thirty countries. The job's grind makes mustering energy to raise labor's flag tough too.
Despite the obstacles, CAUSE collected over 1,700 worker signatures to force the union election. But Amazon told organizers they could not hang flyers or hold informational meetings inside the warehouse, while firing three CAUSE leaders and calling the police to arrest volunteers handing out leaflets outside. The company blanketed the facility with vote no messaging on banners, posters, and video screens. From a hastily erected 'town hall' stage, managers seeded lies about CAUSE threatening deportation for migrant workers — and that a union victory would mean everyone losing their benefits. Over CAUSE objections, the election was held inside the warehouse under the surveillance of Amazon's video cameras, managers, 'union-avoidance' consultants, and security guards. It felt almost like some sham election in totalitarian North Korea.
CAUSE has petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees union elections, to throw out the vote. The complaint cites the targeting of union activists with suspensions, random drug testing, and denying disability accommodations among sixteen different charges, although the Trump administration has signaled intentions to make the NLRB more company-friendly in its rulings.
Even when a union wins certification, companies will stall and dodge to avoid good faith bargaining for a new contract. Starbucks has so far refused to meet barista demands halfway. Here in North Carolina, the Duke Graduate Student Union and REI workers have seen little progress in contract talks despite winning elections almost two years ago.
Hopeful examples do exist of cooperation. By contrast to union-phobic Amazon and most other big retailers, many Costco stores are unionized, with the Teamsters. Most hourly employees there earn more than $30 an hour and yet the low worker turnover, strong productivity, and not needing to throw millions at union-busting saves the company money. Costco profits have steadily risen in recent years. Unionization can be a win-win for workers and owners.
So long as many companies pay misery pay while treating workers like robots, the fight for unions will continue. At RDU1 after the election defeat, CAUSE president Ryan Brown vowed to keep organizing for as long as it takes.
'Hear me well,' Brown said. 'We're not going anywhere.'