In an unusual video he posted this week on Twitter, new President Joe Biden offered his support to Amazon employees in Alabama seeking to form a union. “Unions put power in the hands of workers. They balance the playing field. They give you a stronger voice, for your health, safety, higher wages and protection from discrimination and sexual harassment,” he said, adding, “There should be no intimidation, no coercion, no threats, No propaganda against the union by the employers. ”
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At Bessemer Alabama, 5,800 warehouse workers are trying to get some of the power back into their hands after years in which they and other warehouses at Amazon’s logistics centers complained about harsh, stressful and inhumane working conditions. Their efforts to form a union under the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers’ Union (RWDSU) is the largest and first of its kind in the U.S., which employs about 400,000 warehouse workers in the country, and is particularly unusual in the south, where it is particularly difficult to unionize. It will be decided by a simple majority in a postal vote that begins in February and ends on March 29.
Amazon was not enthusiastic
Although Biden did not mention Amazon by name, everyone knew who he meant, and RWDSU was overjoyed. “As President Biden noted, the best way for working people to protect themselves and their families is through unions,” RWDSU President Stuart Applebaum said in a statement, “which is why so many workers are fighting for unionization at the Amazon facility in Bessarab Alabama.”
Amazon was less enthusiastic: “We do not believe RWDSU represents the majority of our employees’ views,” they said in a press release. “Our employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs anywhere we employ, and we encourage everyone to compare our compensation package, health benefits and work environment, to any other company with similar jobs.” Amazon spokesman Jay Carney, who made the announcement, served as Biden’s press secretary at the beginning of his term as vice president, and later as Obama’s press secretary.
Biden’s video is unusual in the American landscape but befits Biden’s image that he has been cultivating for decades as a “middle-class Joe” – a working-class working-class man from small Scranton, Pennsylvania. At the start of his presidential campaign, he even promised in speeches in the country’s industrial strips that he would be “the most pro-union president you have ever seen” and that a term he headed would be back to an attitude of respect for work. “I have made it clear during my campaign that my policy will be to support trade unions and the right to bargain collectively,” Biden said in the video, “I keep that promise.” This approach by Biden attracted important, almost unreserved, support from trade unions in his candidacy. Not coincidentally, these are not obvious election promises.
In the 1960s and 1970s, U.S. trade unions represented about 30 percent of the workforce. Their activities were so significant that they managed to paralyze governments and economies, right and left. But slowly they gained the image of market destroyers and economic destroyers. Today, union erosion is so deep. , In the vast U.S. retail market only 5% of workers are unionized, and all of the country’s trade unions represent just over 11% of the workforce. In fact, the status of unions has been so low in recent years that even President Obama, who also called himself a “union man” at the beginning of his first term, refused to openly support incorporation efforts or assist against notorious Republican legislation in Wisconsin that restricted the power to form.
This is not the first action Biden has taken on behalf of workers. Since taking office in January, he has signed a presidential decree guaranteeing the bargaining rights of workers and raising the minimum wage for federal workers to $ 15 an hour. On the day he was sworn in, he also fired Peter Rob, the National Council’s National Counselor appointed by President Trump, who has been known for his activities as a union hostile since the days of the Reagan administration.
It is worth noting, however, that Biden’s mobilization came after a wave of pressure from various unions and interest groups on his government to support an incorporation in Alabama. Last Thursday, a coalition of more than 30 different organizations sent a letter to the White House calling on the president to express public support for the union workers’ union efforts. “One of the most important things a president can do to help working people is to give them back when they challenge the power of a corporation, and to give public support to the idea that Americans have the right to bargain collectively for better working conditions,” it said. They even quoted Biden as reminding him of his promise to be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”
Although professional associations are perceived on the conservative right and even in parts of the American moderate left as irrational events to be suppressed, in progressive glasses there is a clear economic rationale for association efforts, especially on Amazon. According to a study by the Brookings Institution published in late 2020, since the outbreak of the epidemic, Amazon has increased its profits by 53% compared to 2019, and during a period during the epidemic it even reported that it made sales of $ 11,000 every second. Accordingly, the share price soared 74% during 2020, the company is currently traded at a value of $ 1.58 trillion, and Bezos has increased its wealth by $ 70 billion to $ 200 billion, and to the richest man in the world.
His warehouse workers do not enjoy this wealth. While they receive a starting salary of $ 15 per hour, twice the US federal minimum wage (which has not changed since 2007), they are less than the median wage per warehouse worker, which stands at $ 16.6 per hour. In fact, an ordinary warehouse worker at Amazon needs an average public benefit of $ 5,245 a year, mostly for subsidized health insurance. Even a two-dollar risk increase given by the company to warehouse workers in exchange for risking their lives during the epidemic was stopped in May. “If ever there was a moment to rebalance the profit-versus-people equation, it “, Wrote in Brookings.
Reward work and not just wealth
“I have nothing against Amazon,” Biden said during his campaign in one of his few references to the retail giant, “but a company that records billions of dollars in profits should not pay lower taxes than firefighters and teachers. We should reward work, not just wealth.”
Amazon, which enjoys immense political power as one of the largest employers in the world, is known for its diverse efforts to suppress all attempts at incorporation, and has not remained indifferent to events in Alabama either. The company ran a massive intimidation campaign against employees and invited them to “trainings” in which managers explained to employees why they should vote against an association. According to them, unions are ineffective and will simply take their money without any consideration. Amazon even tried to force employees to vote at physical polls, and to hell with the plague. Biden addressed these methods explicitly. “Let me be very clear. The decision whether someone should join the union is not up to me. But let me be even clearer: it is also not the job of the employer to decide that.”