Bessemer warehouse workers notified the NLRB last week that they want to hold an election to create a bargaining unit that would cover 1,500 full-time and part-time workers, represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The agency had scheduled a Dec. 11 hearing to determine, among other items, whether to call a union election.

But Amazon failed to persuade the agency to delay the hearing by at least a month. The union opposed rescheduling the hearing at all. The NLRB decided to push the hearing back a week to Dec. 18 without offering an explanation.