Employees at an Amazon.com facility have decided against
forming a labor union. The vote last night was the first of its kind in
Amazon's history.
The Seattle-based online retailer employs more than 100,000
people worldwide, and the union would have comprised only about 30 maintenance
and repair technicians at a warehouse in Delaware. These employees were unhappy
about "limited opportunities for promotion and a constantly rotating chain
of managers," .
But after weeks of discussion, only six of them voted for
unionization late Wednesday.
John Carr, a spokesman for the , said the company had met
with employees to pressure them against unionizing. He called the process
"an uphill battle all the way."
Kelly Cheeseman, an Amazon spokeswoman, tells the Two-Way
that the company had met with the employees "to communicate facts and
ensure they had all the information they needed to make an informed
choice" and that the group decided that they didn't want third-party
representation.
This would have been Amazon's first labor union in the U.S.
The company is openly opposed to unions and has successfully fought previous
efforts to unionize here. The attempts had never before gotten as far as an
employee vote.
But some workers in other countries have sided with
third-party negotiators. In Germany, hundreds of employees at three
distribution centers went on strike last month to dispute their pay, . Hundreds
of other employees in Germany, worried that Amazon would move its facilities,
responded by signing a petition against the unionization efforts.
Source: NPR
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