Amazon ordered to let workers vote on unionizing -- for the 3rd time

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Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Ala., have voted twice on whether to unionize, but the results remained too close to call since 2022. / AFP via Getty

Amazon workers at a warehouse in Alabama should get a third opportunity to vote on unionizing, a federal labor judge has ruled.

The vote is not expected any time soon, however, as the legal process drags on.

The warehouse in Bessemer made history as the site of the very first union election by Amazon workers, in 2021. But the outcome was not historic: workers voted against unionizing.

U.S. labor officials later ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the vote, and workers voted a second time in 2022. The outcome remained too close to call for years, with hundreds of ballots challenged by either Amazon or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union as the two accused each other of breaking labor laws.

For months, in a tiny courtroom in Birmingham, an administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board heard testimony about the 2022 election from workers, Amazon managers and officials from the agency itself.

The labor board's own investigators painted a picture of an aggressive and illegal anti-union campaign by the company. The union asked for another do-over of the vote. The company challenged how the government ran the last vote and reiterated that workers "made their voices heard" as they rejected the union in the original election.

That original vote against unionizing was set aside by federal labor officials because they ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the election, particularly by placing a mailbox for ballots in an Amazon-branded tent in a surveilled parking lot.

Now Judge Michael Silverstein is ordering a third election, finding that Amazon illegally confiscated union materials from the break room, among other violations. But Silverstein also moved to dismiss several allegations of unfair labor practices by Amazon.

Amazon says it plans to appeal the ruling.

"This decision is wrong on the facts and the law," Spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis said in a statement. She criticized the labor board and the union for "trying to force a third vote instead of accepting the facts and the will of our team members."

The union also is challenging parts of the order, which means there will be more legal reviews before a new election can be set.

“We reject [the judge’s] decision not to provide any of the significant and meaningful remedies which we requested and would be required for a free and fair election,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement. “There is no reason to expect a different result in a third election – unless there are additional remedies. Otherwise, Amazon will continue repeating its past behavior and the Board will continue ordering new elections.”

Separately, Amazon continues to legally challenge the historic 2022 union victory at a facility in Staten Island, N.Y. That election formed the first — and so far only — unionized Amazon warehouse in the country, but the company still refuses to begin bargaining with some 5,500 unionized workers.

The upstart union that prevailed in New York — the independent Amazon Labor Union, saw its finances and organization deteriorate over the two-year standoff with Amazon. In June, it voted to affiliate with the well-established International Brotherhood Teamsters.

Editor's note: Amazon is among NPR's recent financial supporters.

Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom contributed to this report.