- Organizers say the changes make union efforts harder.
- Amazon faces the biggest union push in its history as an attempt to delay fails.
- A Jefferson County official has confirmed that Amazon has asked to change the traffic light patterns.
- Inside Amazon’s secret strategy to dodge India e-commerce regulations.
Amazon reportedly changed the timing of a traffic light outside the warehouse, according to reporting by More Perfect Union. Union organizers at the site had previously accused the company of altering the timing so that pro-union workers would not be able to canvas workers while stopped at the light. Until recently, the altered timing on the traffic light outside the factory had been dismissed as a rumor.
But More Perfect Union confirmed with Jefferson County officials that last year, Amazon notified the county of traffic delays during shift changes and asked for the light to be changed. On December 15th, the county increased the green light duration in an effort to clear workers off the worksite faster. There’s no indication that the county was aware of the ongoing organizing drive or any effect the traffic light changes might have on the effort.
Amazon Faces its biggest Union Push
This kind of pressure has led some Amazon workers to organize the biggest unionization push at the company. Since it was founded in 1995. And it’s happening in the unlikeliest of places: Bessemer, Alabama, a state with laws that don’t favor unions. The stakes are high. If organizers succeed in Bessemer, it could set off a chain reaction across Amazon’s operations nationwide, with thousands of more workers rising up and demanding better working conditions.
But they face an uphill battle against the second-largest employer in the country with a history of crushing unionizing efforts at its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores. Attempts by Amazon to delay the vote in Bessemer have failed. So too have the company’s efforts to require in-person voting, which organizers argue would be unsafe during the pandemic.
Mail-in voting started this week and will go on until the end of March. A majority of the 6,000 employees have to vote yes” in order to unionize. Amazon, whose profits and revenues have skyrocketed during the pandemic, has campaigned hard to convince workers that a union will only suck money from their paycheck with little benefit. Spokeswoman Rachael Lighty says the company already offers them what unions want: benefits, career growth, and pay that starts at $15 an hour. She adds that the organizers don’t represent the majority of Amazon employees’ views.
Amazon’s secret strategy to dodge India e-commerce regulations
It was early 2019, and senior Amazon.com Inc. executive Jay Carney was preparing for an important meeting. The former press secretary to the U.S. In Delhi, the Indian government had just announced foreign direct investment regulations that threatened to disrupt Amazon’s business in the world’s second-most populous country. Before the meeting, Amazon employees prepared a draft note for Carney. The note, reviewed by Reuters, advised Carney what to say – and what not to say.
the fact that Amazon had committed more than $5.5 billion in investment in India and how it provided an online platform for 400,000-plus Indian sellers. That information, the note advised, was “Sensitive/not for disclosure.” Other company documents reveal equally touchy information: Two more sellers on the e-commerce giant’s India platform – merchants in which Amazon had indirect equity stakes – accounted for around 35% of the platform’s sales revenue in early 2019. That meant some 35 of Amazon’s more than 400,000 sellers in India at the time accounted for around two-thirds of its online sales.
