March 30 (Reuters) – Labor board officials expect to start counting votes by Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) warehouse workers in New York City and Alabama on Thursday afternoon in separate contests that will decide if Amazon sees a U.S. workplace unionize for the first time.
In Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon employees voted in a repeat election after they rebuffed joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) by a more than 2-to-1 margin last year. After finding that Amazon had interfered around that vote, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) called for a re-run. read more
Turnout in Alabama decreased from last year, the RWDSU said on Wednesday. About 39% of the 6,143 workers designated to receive mail ballots voted in the new election, down from over 50% in 2021.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
In New York City’s Staten Island borough workers on Wednesday still had several hours left to vote, and turnout was not yet clear.
The counts for both Bessemer and Staten Island are tentatively scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday, though that could change, an NLRB spokesperson said. Counting could last multiple days.
Low turnout may bode well for Amazon’s union backers, said John Logan, a labor professor at San Francisco State University.
“Supporters are more likely to be solid union votes,” he said, adding, however, that it was tough to generalize. “Even a close election is going to be in some ways a sort of a morale booster and moral victory for the RWDSU.”
Amazon referred comment on the vote count and turnout to the NLRB.
According to the RWDSU, parties in the Bessemer election have challenged hundreds of ballots as ineligible for counting, based, for instance, on voters’ employment dates, job classification or other issues.
Those challenges will be addressed after the remaining ballots are counted and could alter the outcome in the event of a close election.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com
Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, California; Editing by Leslie Adler
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.