On this Good Friday in the U.S. we await the result of the most significant union organizing drive in decades.  Workers in Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama warehouse have voted this month on creating the first collective bargaining unit in one of this country’s multiple Amazon “fulfillment centers”.  A yes vote will mean the 6,000 Bessemer warehouse workers will negotiate on their wages, benefits and working conditions that now are determined solely by the corporation’s management and board with the aim of maximizing profits and the price of company stock.

With growth of the global economy in the late sixties and early seventies, the number and strength of union organized workers has fallen dramatically in the U.S.  As manufacturing jobs in “heavy industries” like steel and automobile have grown overseas, they have been replaced by jobs in the retail sales, restaurants and fast food, transport and warehouses of the “service sector”.  Global trade distributes products to consumers around the world products made outside their country’s borders. This applies as well to purchases made by U.S. manufacturing companies for assembly of their products.

The largest retail sales company in the U.S. and the world today did not exist before 1962.  Wal Mart was founded and has grown on a business plan wholly dependent on the global economy and lower costs for labor.  Advances in shipping and air transport permitted the company to rely on importing products made at much lower wages, from China in particular, and selling them in sprawling stores at prices below the competition.  Low wage labor overseas was complemented by steadfast, and often fierce, opposition to unions being formed by their U.S. workers.  The result is a dependence by many Wal Mart workers on meager U.S. government programs of food stamps, health care, and housing.

Little progress in union organizing has been made in the past five decades among the U.S. service industries’ workers.  Prevailing anti-union media references, the dwindling power and funding of union organizing and state and federal governments’ failure to defend the right to organize have militated against the organizing of service sector workers.  The “neo-liberal” economic policies proposed by politicians of both parties, ex-President Clinton being the leading example among Democrats, have left workers with little support from those in power.  

Among President Biden’s programs and positions representing reform of U.S. capitalism the most significant among them could be the administration’s outspoken support for unions and organized labor.  A former union leader has been named to the Cabinet position of Secretary of Labor for the first time in fifty years.  More vigilant oversight of company malpractice in opposing organizing and the holding of elections is promised.  And President Biden himself has urged Amazon workers to vote yes on a union at the Alabama warehouse.  These gestures could signal growing recognition of the role of organized labor in creating a stronger economy and healthier social climate in this country.

The organizing campaign among the Alabama Amazon workers has been aided by an international effort to “Make Amazon Pay” higher taxes in all countries where the company operates and by Amazon’s shoddy treatment of its workers during the pandemic.  At the outset its white collar staff were told to work from home while the warehouse workers were offered unlimited unpaid leave. As consumer orders immediately increased in March 2020, the company raised the hourly wage $2 an hour and doubled overtime pay to further motivate workers.  For workers proving a positive COVID test result for themselves or a family member, two weeks of paid leave was offered.

Once Amazon had hired more workers for its 500 U.S. warehouses, the unpaid unlimited sick leave was rescinded in May 2020 and the wage increases revoked the next month.  By July the total shareholder value of Amazon had increased $500 million to $1.4 trillion confirming founder Jeff Bezos’ status as the richest person in the world.  Company growth did not lead to favorable responses by unionized workers in the European countries where Amazon operates and the workers in Germany announced a strike prior to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Amazon then trumpeted the awarding of Thanksgiving worker bonuses amounting to $300 for full time workers and $150 for its part-time workers.

The Amazon worker bonuses received an unanticipated reaction from the global coalition which organized Black Friday protests in 15 countries. UNI Global Union, Amazon Workers International and other participating groups in a statement noted Bezos could give $105,000 bonuses to every Amazon employee and not have lost in net wealth during the spread of the COVID virus.  The coalition statement on Black Friday last year faulted the company’s impact on the environment asserting that its “growing delivery and cloud computing businesses are accelerating climate breakdown”.  Amazon’s “carbon footprint” is “larger than two thirds of all countries in the world” the multiple coalition groups, including OXFAM, the Sunrise Movement and Public Citizen, stated.  A coalition leader, Global Union’s Christy Hoffman, responded to the Thanksgiving worker bonuses, “To show it values its workforce, Amazon should collectively bargain wages and conditions with workers throughout its operations, rather than make one time unilateral gestures”.

Unlike the U.S. employees, Amazon workers in most of the countries where Black Friday protests took place have been able to organize unions to negotiate with the company and/or appeal to the courts to address their needs.  Activist workers in this country are  vulnerable to being fired with no defense by a union.  Support for Amazon organizing from the Biden administration could also foretell increased pressure to pay higher taxes in this country.   Tax avoidance through the use of profit shifting, tax havens and loopholes enabled the company to pay just under 2 per cent of its profits in 2019 tax reporting and no taxes in the previous two years.  In the country where it was founded and still has its headquarters, Amazon pays little to nothing to uphold the public infrastructure and the “common good”.

There is now growing recognition in this country that major corporations devote little attention, let alone concern, to the “common good” or the well being of their rank and file workers.  Executive compensation and performance of the company stock are given priority through their public relations campaigns, tax dodges, hire of anti-union consultants and dismissal of workers with complaints.  The grotesque preoccupation with profit taking by executives and company boards dehumanizes all participants in an economy which threatens world survival.  On this Good Friday, the U.S. worker hangs on a cross of corporate greed.  There is more at stake in the Amazon worker vote than just forming a union in one “fulfillment center”, as the company calls its warehouses.  Amazon’s fear is justified that a worker victory in Alabama will lead to organizing campaigns among its warehouse employees nationwide.  We can only hope that is the outcome.