The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of the nation's largest unions, on Thursday launched an ambitious campaign to unionize employees at e-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN), the nation's second-largest employer.
The new campaign comes less than three months after workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama voted overwhelmingly against a union, though a decision is pending from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over claims that Amazon illegally interfered with the organizing campaign.
While an NLRB decision against Amazon could force a re-vote in Bessemer, the unsuccessful organizing drive — conducted by the Retail, Wholesale, Department Store Union (RWDSU) — brought a reckoning within the labor movement over the challenge of organizing a sprawling, well-resourced, anti-union employer like Amazon.
The Teamsters, which represents more than a million U.S. workers in logistics, trucking, and other related occupations, could succeed where the Bessemer campaign faltered because it boasts size and deep pockets of its own, labor experts told Yahoo Finance.
Plus, the union brings decades of experience organizing in the sector and plans for a different strategy potentially less vulnerable to anti-union intimidation, the experts said.
“It makes sense that this union in particular, which happens to be a very large one, would want to organize Amazon warehouses," says Dan Cornfield, a professor and labor sociologist at Vanderbilt University. "It’s a very powerful union in the economic sector in which Amazon operates."
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the campaign launched by the Teamsters. After the Bessemer vote this spring, Amazon praised it as a victory for employees who had their voices heard.
"It’s easy to predict the union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true," the company said in a statement following the vote. "Our employees heard far more anti-Amazon messages from the union, policymakers, and media outlets than they heard from us. And Amazon didn’t win — our employees made the choice to vote against joining a union."
'It's a very big union'
The new initiative, dubbed the "Amazon Project," will create a special department within the Teamsters devoted to Amazon organizing that will be "fully funded" by the union to address the "existential threat" to union members posed by the company, according to a resolution the Teamsters passed on Thursday.
The Teamsters count 1.4 million members, whose dues helped the union earn more than $200 million in revenue last year, according to Labor Department filings analyzed by The New York Times. By comparison, the RWDSU has roughly 100,000 members, less than a tenth of the size of the Teamsters.
In addition to the financial resources afforded by Teamster members, the union can draw on its rank-and-file for local support and even volunteer organizing, said Joshua Freeman, a professor emeritus of labor history at Queens College at the City University of New York.
"Because it’s a large union with people all over the country, this is potentially effective," he says. "People know the local communities unlike an outside organizer, and it's frankly less expensive than having a huge staff of organizers on payroll."
The advantage of member participation isn't lost on the Teamsters. Randy Korgan, the Teamster's National Amazon Director, told Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita that members can attest to the higher pay and safety protections earned through collective bargaining. Plus, he noted the role they can play in local labor campaigns.
"Our greatest resource is our membership," Korgan says. "We have more than one million members across the country that obviously have family members and are intertwined in the community every single day."
Despite some potential cost savings from member volunteers, the Teamsters will "need to gird themselves for a substantial commitment of resources," Freeman acknowledges.
"It's a very big union — one of the few unions in America that can actually do that," he adds.
A person holds "Vote Union Yes!" signs during a protest in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate and the unionization of Amazon.com, Inc. fulfillment center workers at Kelly Ingram Park on March 27, 2021 in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images) ·PATRICK T. FALLON via Getty Images
'It won't look anything like Bessemer'
The Teamsters not only enjoy significant resources but also plan to use them differently.
The organizing campaign in Bessemer followed a traditional approach in which the RWDSU signed up workers in support of the effort, triggered a union election, and sought a majority vote that would have legally required Amazon to recognize RWDSU as the representative of the facility's workers in collective bargaining.
But federal labor law permits employers wide latitude in dissuading workers from supporting a labor drive. Amazon made its anti-union position known in an aggressive campaign carried out through multiple avenues, including mandatory meetings and a website that warned of onerous dues payments.
The Teamsters have opted for a different strategy that circumvents a vote at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), instead focusing on a confrontational campaign that will draw negative attention to Amazon's labor practices and pressure the company to voluntarily recognize the union, Vice reported.
"It won’t look anything like the Bessemer effort," says Rebecca Givan, an associate professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. "The Bessemer effort was using a broken NLRB process to organize a single workplace, which means the process is very narrowly defined and favors the employer."
"In this case, we see a union committed to organizing without using the NLRB process," she adds. "They'll have the ability to make their demands in different and potentially quite creative ways."
Speaking to Yahoo Finance, RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said the campaign in Bessemer remains "ongoing" as the union awaits an NLRB decision over illegal Amazon interference, pointing out that the campaign has already made the important contribution of "opening the door to the organizing of Amazon facilities."
Appelbaum also said he welcomes the Teamsters' organizing effort, including its alternative strategy.
"I don’t see a conflict between the strategies — I really don’t," Appelbaum says. "There isn't one silver bullet."
"It’s really a battle for the entire labor movement because the fight against Amazon relates to the future of work and affects everybody," he adds.
Pro-Union voting signage hangs outside the Amazon.com, Inc. fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama on March 26, 2021. -(Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images) ·PATRICK T. FALLON via Getty Images
'If you think you need millions of dollars to beat Amazon, you don't.'
Some labor organizers greeted the Teamsters announcement with skepticism.
Chris Smalls, an Amazon employee at a Staten Island warehouse who was fired after participating in a walkout last year, has led a union drive at the facility since April, signing up workers in an effort to file for a union election within the next two months.
Smalls said he supports the Teamsters' involvement in organizing Amazon workers but questioned whether the union's reputation, size, and experience would serve them.
"If they think the fact that they’re the Teamsters — one of the biggest unions in country — is going to be enough to get workers on board," Smalls says. "It’s not."
"If you think you need millions of dollars to beat Amazon, you don’t," he says. "If experience was all it took to unionize a building, I think it would’ve been done already."
"This is a different animal," he adds. "You need creative ways to infiltrate these buildings."
For years, Amazon has withstood persistent criticism over the conditions at its warehouse network, which has grown to at least 110 fulfillment centers in North America. In recent years, workers complained of demanding quotas and digital surveillance that employees say penalized them for taking breaks.
The novel coronavirus fueled record e-commerce revenue for Amazon as hundreds of millions of Americans were forced into their homes, prompting the hiring of hundreds of thousands of workers and plans to expand its warehouse network. Last month, the company announced it would hire 75,000 workers at an average starting wage of over $17 per hour.
"Our employees are the heart and soul of Amazon, and we’ve always worked hard to listen to them, take their feedback, make continuous improvements, and invest heavily to offer great pay and benefits in a safe and inclusive workplace," Amazon said following the vote in Bessemer. "We’re not perfect, but we’re proud of our team and what we offer, and will keep working to get better every day."
Labor advocates and experts differed over the best strategy to organize Amazon but agreed that the Teamsters initiative carries immense stakes.
"If they do have success, and that’s a big 'if,'' says Freeman, the professor emeritus at Queens College. "It will have tremendous ripple effects."
