Judge Orders Another Union Election At Amazon Warehouse In Alabama

Officials have found that the Big Tech retailer interfered in not one but two union elections at the warehouse in ways that warranted throwing out the results.

A judge at the federal labor board has ordered a do-over union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, finding that the online retail giant broke the law in ways that spoiled a vote by workers in 2022.

The new election would be the third one held at the facility — the previous vote itself was a do-over, after a labor board official set aside the results of the initial election, in 2021, due to Amazon’s allegedly illegal conduct.

In a decision issued Tuesday at the National Labor Relations Board, Administrative Law Judge Michael Silverstein ruled that Amazon illegally interrogated employees about the union, confiscated union materials from bathrooms and break rooms, surveilled pro-union employees and told them the warehouse would close if they organized.

Workers at the warehouse had voted 993 to 875 against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union in the 2022 election, though that tally does not include hundreds of challenged ballots that haven’t been opened.

Silverstein dismissed most of the union’s allegations against Amazon, but ruled that the violations the company did commit during the second organizing campaign “prevented the holding of a fair election” and warranted tossing out the results.