Amazon has a message for its worker : if you desire to organise so badly , you ’ll involve to risk catching the coronavirus to do it .
That ’s according to an prayer the e - commerce giantfiledwith the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday arguing against the board ’s decision to give Amazon ’s Bessemer warehouse worker the next two months to vote on their potential unionization by postal service . Instead , Amazon asked to postpone the vote so the Board can take time to “ reconsider ” its decision and possibly allow the on-line retail merchant to wedge an in - soul vote despite the obvious health hazards .
Just to recapitulate how we got here : in November , a radical of 5,700 worker in Amazon ’s Bessemer , Alabamafiled a petitionwith the NLRB for license to hold a vote on whether workers would wish to be recognize by the Retail , Wholesale , and Department Store Union . As you might have a bun in the oven , Amazonwasn’t pleasedwith the whole idea , but that did n’t stop the board from give those workers a green lightearlier this month . While these form of votes are commonly hold in person , the ongoing pandemic advertize the move to start a mail service - in voting effort in February .
Photo: Ina Fassbender (Getty Images)
I call up we can harmonize that ’s the best move . Alabama kick off 2021 withan explosionof new coronavirus cases across the state that sawmore than 4,000new vitrine a day sum during its superlative . While the pace has cooled down to an modal ofroughly 2,600per day , that ’s still 2,600 grammatical case per day . People arestill dying . In Jefferson County — where the Bessemer warehouse is based — there ’s stillan averageof nearly 400 new face and 10 new deaths per day . Anddatacompiled by the New York Times predicts that the casual destruction count could continue to climb , even as cases drop .
But as the company pointed out , the covid-19 case numbers that the board referenced in its decision to move to post - in vote were numbers from Jefferson County as a whole . Instead , Amazon insisted they only count cases from within the warehouses themselves . The NLRB ’s disceptation that Amazon ’s workers could , say , inadvertently catch the virus on one of theirmany , many commutesis just an seek to “ cherry - find fault whatever statistics make a manual election spirit riskier , ” the party said .
Amazon impart that the hazard that arrive with a postal service - in vote — voter humbug , potential coercion , and restrictions on “ employer ’ free speech right ” and the companionship ’s ability to commune its survey with the voting base — far outweighed these supposedly inane concerns .
“ [ The Board ] deemed a chain mail - balloting - only election the ‘ good ’ approach , not base on the record , but based on speculation and conjecture , ” Amazon said , conveniently bury its own criminal record with handling its workers ’ safety since the kickoff of the pandemic .
Here ’s a refresher course : in October , Amazon reported thatover 19,800of its frontline Amazon and Whole Foods worker had either test or were presume to be covid - positive . The companywas suedthis past summertime when one of those workers brought the virus home and end up give her cousin-german a disastrous case . In October , the ship’s company was hit withanother suitalleging that the 2020 Prime Day haste caused Amazon to abandon its own safety guard . TheOSHA databasefor coronavirus ill still sees a stiff trickle of grievance lob at Amazon every month .
When asked for scuttlebutt , an Amazon interpreter told Gizmodo that it continue to “ insist on measures for a bonny election , and we want everyone to vote , so our focal point is see to it that ’s possible . ” plain , ensuring their safety is n’t the biggest factor .
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