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In a Thursday filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Seattle-based online retail giant formally requested that a group of Alabama warehouse trying to form a union be required to
vote in person, rather than by mail, according to
Bloomberg. The company also requested a
postponement of the vote so the NLRB can reconsider its earlier ruling which gives workers
the next two months to vote by mail.
A group of workers at Amazon's Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse filed paperwork in November for an election to decide whether to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a rare step for workers at a company whose U.S. workforce isn't unionized. The NLRB, which oversees union votes, earlier this month said the vote would be conducted by mail, citing standards set up during the pandemic to keep workers and staffers safe. -Bloomberg
Amazon objected to the NLRB's decision - saying they had 'unfairly dismissed the company's argument' that its facility is
safer than the surrounding Jefferson County, which hit a 20% COVID-19 positive test rate earlier this month. The company argues that in-person voting would have "fully minimized any risk of transmission," and that the NLRB's decision on mail-in votes was "based on speculation and conjecture, and without ever balancing the purported risk of virus spread against the public policy that 'strongly favors' allowing employees to vote in person."
Comment: It's interesting that the BBC is being accused of fighting against equal pay when its programming is increasingly tailored into promoting such agendas as gender-fluidity: