But Bessemer was always viewed as a long shot since it pitted the country’s second-largest employer against warehouse workers in a state with laws that don’t favor unions.
The organizing efforts in Bessemer coincided with protests happening throughout the country after the police killing of George Floyd, raising awareness around racial injustice and further fueling frustration over how workers at the warehouse — more than 80% who are Black — are being treated, with 10-hour days of packing and loading boxes and only two 30-minute breaks.
In a press conference held by Amazon, four workers at the Bessemer warehouse said talk of mistreatment by the company was the opinion of a few workers, not all of them.“We’re really sorry that their experience hasn’t been the same as ours,†said Will Stokes, one of the warehouse workers who voted against the union.The organizing effort inside the Bessemer warehouse began last summer when a group of workers approached the RWDSU about forming a union.Amazon hung anti-union signs throughout the warehouse and held mandatory meetings to convince workers why the union was a bad idea.
“It is extraordinarily courageous for workers to take on one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful corporations, a company that spent unlimited sums of money to defeat the organizing effort,†he said in a statement.Emmit Ashford, a pro-union Amazon worker in Bessemer who spoke at a press conference held by the retail union, said he is not giving up