Amazon used illegal intimidation tactics in Alabama vote, union claims

Amazon used illegal intimidation tactics that prevented a “free and fair” vote over whether to unionize an Alabama warehouse earlier this month, according to the labor union leading the campaign.

The Seattle-based e-tailing giant, which on April 9 won the closely watched, hotly contested vote in Bessemer, Ala., had threatened beforehand to lay off employees at the facility and to shut it down altogether if workers voted to unionize, according to allegations filed with US labor regulators by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The RWDSU filed a total of 23 objections with the National Relations Labor Board late Friday, claiming that Amazon “created an atmosphere of confusion, coercion and or fear of reprisals.”