February 18, 2022
In Bessemer and the South, Black Workers Hold the Key
Does the ongoing campaign to unionize the Amazon warehouse, where 85 percent of the workers are Black, portend a return to large-scale campaigns in the region?
Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
Over 6,000 workers at Amazon’s mammoth Bessemer, Alabama, facility are headed for a revote on whether they want to join the 60,000-member Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), an affiliate of the 1.25 million–member United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
The ballots went out on February 4 and will be counted by March 25. Once again, Amazon is waging an aggressive anti-union campaign, despite the November 2021 ruling from the National Labor Relations Board that ordered a new election due to the company’s violations during the previous election process.
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