Tribune. On both sides of the Atlantic, the vote of 5,805 employees at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, on their unionization garnered significant media coverage. It must be said that this labor dispute crystallized important issues. That of the working conditions of Amazon employees in the midst of a health crisis: with little or no compensation, these warehouse workers were put to the test with the explosion of orders, while the boss of the company, Jeff Bezos , has grown considerably.
That also of a mobilization concerning mainly black workers in a Southern State, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. The stake, finally, of the well-established panoply of anti-union tactics carried out by executives and specialized consultants: to play on the perimeter of the employees concerned by the poll, to use daily communication at work about unions, which is most often erroneous , repress or even unlawfully dismiss activists.
Modes of action of associations and NGOs
This is why this attempt to establish a union has received a lot of support, first and foremost the historic one from President Joe Biden. But for the moment, Amazon remains, like Walmart, a company without a union presence, “union free”.
The failure to organize these Amazon workers is also indicative of the strategic and organizational dilemmas facing US unionists. In many ways, what happened at Bessemer illustrates the difficulties of trade unionists in freeing themselves from the shackles of North American industrial relations and from a labor law unfavorable to the collective actions of workers, as evidenced by a rate of very low unionization at 10.8% (6.3% in the private sector).
However, trade unionists have not ceased to renew their repertoire of actions since the end of the 1970s. They thus increasingly borrow the modes of action of associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) under the authority of the government. advocacy (sensitization of business investors and public relations campaigns), or even lead joint struggles with these organizations.
By mobilizing external support, but also by often mobilizing remote workplaces and workers themselves, it is a question of damaging the reputation of companies so that their leaders grant better wages and better working conditions to employees. employees, whether unionized or not.
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