The count will resume Friday at 8:30 a.m. CST.
Currently, there are 1,100 “no” votes against the union, and 463 “yes” votes.
Some tweeters:
https://twitter.com/EzraNBC & https://twitter.com/GrimKim
The union seeking to represent workers said late Wednesday that there were 3,215 ballots cast — or about 55 percent of the roughly 5,800 workers who were eligible to vote. Hundreds of ballots are being contested, mostly by Amazon according to the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union.
Union elections are typically held in person, but the labor board determined that the election should be conducted by mail to minimize risks during the pandemic. The ballots were sent to workers in early February and were due at the agency before March 30. Since then, Amazon and the union have had a chance to challenge whether particular workers were eligible to vote. When the public counting is done, the agency will announce the formal results if the margin of victory for one side is greater than the number of contested ballots.
Each vote is taking about 7 seconds to count, that means the whole process should take about 6 hours and 15 minutes to complete. Looking like tomorrow.
On Amazon's side, it looks like there are mostly representatives from the law firm Morgan Lewis, which the company hired to help with this union vote, with a few corporate Amazon employees as well.
The vote counting is being shown on a video conference call to a small number of outsiders, including journalists, in addition to representatives from the union and the company.
The actual vote counting is being done in the NLRB offices in Birmingham, AL just a few miles from Bessemer where the Amazon Fulfillment Center known as BHM1 is located. That is the facility that is voting whether or not to join the union.
When the public counting is done, the agency will announce the formal results if the margin of victory for one side is greater than the number of contested ballots.
If the margin is narrower, then it could take two to three weeks for the N.L.R.B. to hold a hearing to sort through the contested ballots and take evidence from both sides on whether they should be counted.
Hundreds of ballots have been contested, which could delay either side from reaching the threshold.
Honestly workplace democracy is absolutely the language that shoukd be used in the US labor movement.
I like that, it has rugged individualism vibes
"Yeah unions are bad. What if instead we just get together as people and strike up a deal with our boss so no one gets shafted?"
Just make the messaging incoherent enough for them to get on board
People were shot and killed in the past for organizing for their union (hell this happens in the global south today). It took those people decades to win. We will win in the long run, we just have to get lucky once. Not a fan of the defeatist black pilled attitude around here. You think Lenin, Mao, or any union member quit after one defeat?
:this:
Before, they were able to kill people in broad daylight. There are already reports about the shady shit Amazon was pulling like fake ballot boxes. If we keep momentum going, this won't go away.
It's cool to be a doomer on the internet, but we got to keep going. Who knows maybe we'll see more radical unionism.
The fact that we won (a bit), and then were thoroughly defeated, andnow we need to rebuild from.scratch while taking Ls all along the way definitely makes me want to take the greypill.
This is the stupidest day in American history, a record that will be broken by every subsequent day in American history.
Read Hammer and Hoe, the amount of struggle to organizing workers and marginalized people is not new, and they have done worse to us than contest and intimidate union votes.
Ultimately the success of our ideology won't come merely from acknowledgment of legal unions, but deep and constant agitation, sabotage, and resistance against bosses.
This is the opening shot of a new era in America, it feels like we can only go up from here.
It's so fucked that the ballots seem to be so against unionization this country just can't allow even a crumb of labor unions apparently :amerikkka:
lol, it's getting crushed.
Amazon wins again. Doesn't even take any effort, Americans are the stupidest most weak willed people on earth.
You sound like an /r/neoliberal ghoul. Stop cheering on the capitalists, there is no reason to celebrate when the working class does poorly in a single front of the international struggle.
i don't see their response as cheering, merely nihilistic affirmation and the joker laugh that comes with it.
The working class in past eras where labor movement flurished and succeeded was famously not overworked, miseducared, without shit material conditions and propagandized. Every single one of these points would apply to any point in history where union struggle was successful. And at an even greater degree
Its all about the material conditions. The fact is they are not nearly as bad as they were when the original union battles were happening. People don't risk there lives in gun battle en mass because things are going only kinda shit.
I hope so if not the organizing experience combined with how blatant Amazon is fucking with it is a powerful radicalizing experience.
This time, I don't think so. Jobs are precarious and workers were subjected to anti-union propaganda for months on end. I don't want to be a downer, but if the trend from the last few hours holds, then it's possible we'll see a little over a 2:1 ratio in NO's favor.
Sigh, I know you're right. Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
Since mid last-year I've become pretty convinced that things will have to get much, much, much worse before U.S. workers finally start to realize they're getting took. We look at deteriorating conditions and think things are bad, but I'm talking "half the population is going days at a time without food" bad. Until then, all we can do is keep fighting, keep organizing, keep posting. We can win the future, even if we've already lost the present.
Someone explain a non murican what the fuck does it mean to "vote to join a union" like? What? It's a personal choice innit?
at ups we were required to join the union, and most places i know the non management is either completely union or non union.
it's probably a result of all the legislation put through to destroy unions back in the day.
My super succinct answer that hopefully others can expand on is:
Organizing committee forms the union by a vote as is here or a card check where majority of workers submit a card.
So vote to join means that they are voting for the bessemer Amazon to join into a union. Hope that makes sense
Votes like this are to give a union (in this case the Resale, Wholesale, and Department Store Union) the sole legal right to negotiate contracts on behalf of employees. If it were to pass then all the workers in the warehouse would be represented by the union in contract negotiations. Because Alabama is a right-to-work state not all employees would have to join the union however. In states without right-to-work laws joining the union would almost certainly be required to work. Minority unions are legal but employers are not legally required to recognize them or involve them as a bargaining unit.
It really does feel like the entire world is reeling back into the gilded age, only for everyone to gain back the rights they once had. Too bad doing all of that is going to be as painstakingly difficult as it was back then.
Too bad doing all of that is going to be as painstakingly difficult as it was back then.
Probably even moreso, with the military technology and level of control over people's thoughts that they have now.
VOTING NEVER WORKS JUST BURN AMAZON TO THE GROUND IN MINECRAFT IT'S EASY
not sure about this one... amazon fuckery is strong and the american worker loves to gargle boot
This doesnt include the challenged votes right? either way seems like it will probably fail unfortunately. I guess all the press and buzz and local organizing around it didnt really materialize into concrete gains with the workers unfortunately vs how much Amazon fought against it.
When the public counting is done, the agency will announce the formal results if the margin of victory for one side is greater than the number of contested ballots.
Hundreds of ballots have been contested, but the margin looks so great that I don't think the contested ones will be counted :doomjak:
