How Amazon Continues to Get Away With Abusing Its Workers

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http://www.alternet.org/how-amazon-continues-get-away-abusing-its-workers




After Amazon vanquished a rare U.S. union effort last week in a 21-to-6 vote, keeping the retail giant union-free across the United States, a union spokesperson blamed that result on a corporate campaign to make workers fear for their jobs — and told Salon a much larger union campaign could be ahead at Amazon.

“Everything Amazon did had the underlying tone of fear,” said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers spokesperson John Carr.

Amazon did not respond to a Tuesday request for comment on the result and the allegations. Company spokesperson Mary Osako told CNN that the January 15 “vote against third-party representation” showed workers “prefer a direct connection with Amazon,” which she called “the most effective way to understand and respond to the wants and needs of our employees.”

Carr said that the IAM is still reviewing whether it had sufficient evidence to file charges alleging law-breaking by Amazon in the lead-up to the vote among a handful of mechanics at a Delaware warehouse. Under federal law, it’s generally illegal for companies to explicitly punish or threaten workers for supporting a union, but legal to hold mandatory anti-union meetings and to make “predictions” about dire consequences that could result from unionization. With the help of the firm Morgan Lewis, contended Carr, the company used such “captive audience” meetings to “put an intense amount of pressure on these workers,” and thus “of course they feared for their jobs.”