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Following a high-profile organizing campaign that drew international attention, workers at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, have voted overwhelming against joining a union. While National Labor Relations Board officials are still sifting through contested votes, the anti-union forces lead by almost a 3-1 margin.
The emphatic rejection was a bitter blow to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which launched the first-ever drive to organize an Amazon warehouse. Its fight to organize the largely African American workforce was likened to past civil rights struggles in Alabama and cast as a “David vs. Goliath” parable by sympathetic reporters.
But the blowout in Bessemer also is a rebuff to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the progressive left. They invested heavily in the organizing push as an opportunity to resuscitate the traditional union organizing model while also curbing the power of one of the Big Tech companies they love to hate.
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