On Friday, April 9, 2021, union workers in Amazon’s year-old Bessemer, Alabama, facility rejected unionization in a vote by a more than two-to-one margin. This was quite a blow to organized labor, which sees the fight with Amazon as key to labor’s survival.

Amazon is the second-largest private employer (Walmart is first), and for two decades has managed to hold off attempts at unionization in its warehouses.

Had the union won, a series of organizing drives at other Amazon warehouses would likely have followed. The benefits to workers would have been things like more flexibility to demand longer breaks, additional safety measures, and reductions in the pace of work. Now, though, Amazon will continue to add and cut staff as usual, heedless of worker concerns.

President Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) were vocal in their support of workers’ attempts to unionize. “The history of struggle is that you don’t always win the first time out. You may have to come back and do it again,” Sanders said.

According to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, labor proponents will do just that. “We’re not going anywhere,” he said in a news conference after the votes were counted. “Whether Jeff Bezos likes it or not, this organizing drive is going to open the floodgates to more collective action.”

The Retail Warehouse and Department Store Union that tried to represent Bessemer workers isn’t finished, either. They say they will challenge the results of the vote, insisting that Amazon used illegal tactics to intimidate and mislead workers. “They lied and tried to game the system,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU.

Amazon’s response to these claims was this: “These fabrications are tiresome but expected.” Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said, “You’re going to hear a lot of untruths from the union now because they have to explain the lopsided result and their answer can’t be Amazon pays more than $15 an hour, offers health care from day one, up to 20 weeks of parental leave, and a safe, clean work environment in state-of-the-art fulfillment centers.”

The Bessemer unionization effort has been carefully watched after last November’s notice to hold a unionization vote was filed. Amazon responded with a flurry of text messages to the 5,805 workers who were eligible to vote, and with fliers posted inside bathroom stall doors. They set up an anti-union website, and before the voting period, they required workers to attend meetings on company time where they showed videos and PowerPoint presentations that denigrated unions. One message from warehouse leadership warned that collective bargaining could mean that workers could lose benefits, since “everything is on the table.”

In one of the mandatory meetings, workers were told that union leaders used membership dues for expensive cars and vacations. In Alabama, unionized workers aren’t required to pay dues under Amendment 8, the “Alabama Right to Work Amendment.”

Union organizers made themselves available outside the warehouse to pass out leaflets and answer workers’ questions when their shifts ended. The union held rallies in Bessemer with guests like Senator Sanders and actor Danny Glover.

Friday’s votes were 1,798 against unionization, 738 for the union. Seventy-six ballots were voided for unstated reasons. Another 505 ballots were challenged but would have been counted if they were necessary to determine the outcome of the vote. More than 3,000 total votes were cast—just over half those eligible to vote.

Workers at other Amazon facilities are considering unionizing their facilities. RWDSU has been contacted by more than 1,000 workers to find out how to launch campaigns at their workplaces. In Iowa, The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has approached 400-500 workers at Amazon facilities to talk unionization.

In the UK, organizers for the GMB Union are watching the events in Bessemer as it works on two Amazon warehouses at home for possible organization.

The RWDSU said in a statement, “The results of the election should be set aside because conduct by the employer created an atmosphere of confusion, coercion and/or fear of reprisals and thus interfered with the employees’ freedom of choice.”

The National Labor Relations Board rules allow the company and the union five business days to contest the conduct or results of the election. The RWDSU plans to file objections that include unfair labor practices claims. If these claims are successful and the board chooses to hear the union’s claims, they could reject the election results and schedule hearings.

If the union succeeds in its challenge, the whole election process could start over, or the RWDSU could pursue legal challenges in court.

RWDSU has some interesting items to challenge. One of them is the appearance of a U.S. Postal Service mailbox in front of the warehouse just after voting opened. The union argued that the appearance of the mailbox and the timing of that appearance could lead some workers to think Amazon had some role in collecting and counting the votes. RWDSU argues this could have influenced the voting results.

The union obtained emails from the Post Office through the Freedom on Information Act that showed Amazon insisting and pressing the Postal Service to install a mailbox just as balloting started.

“Even though the NLRB definitively denied Amazon’s request for a drop box on the warehouse property, Amazon felt it was above the law and worked with the postal service anyway to install one,” Appelbaum said in a statement. “They did this because it provided a clear ability to intimidate workers.”

Amazon also made a financial offer to get unhappy workers to quit. The union sees this as an improper incentive used to eliminate pro-union workers.

Amazon’s response to these allegations was that the mailbox provided a convenient way for workers to vote, and the pay-to-quit proposal is an annual event extended to warehouse workers all over the U.S.

In a blog post, Amazon said, “It’s easy to predict the union will say that Amazon won this election because we intimidated employees, but that’s not true. Our employees heard far more anti-Amazon messages from the union, policymakers, and media outlets than they heard from us. And Amazon didn’t win — our employees made the choice to vote against joining the union.”

Amazon pays its Bessemer workers $15.30 to start, more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25, and provides health care, vision and dental benefits, as well as a retirement plan. Amazon argues that this is more than comparable jobs offer.

Additionally, Amazon opposes unionization mostly because of concerns over the possibility that unions could limit its ability to rapidly hire and fire workers in response to seasonal shopping demands, according to former company executives.

Rebecca Givan, Rutgers University labor studies professor, said the union’s loss was not surprising. “It’s really, really hard to win an organizing drive. The employer has almost unlimited resources and the ability to bombard workers with messages of fear and uncertainty,” she said.

One warehouse order-picker said of her work, “It is a good-paying job. They do have wonderful benefits.” She also said younger employees “don’t feel they need a union because they’re not putting health and safety at risk as much.”

Some dock workers were against unionization because of Amazon’s policy that health benefits become effective immediately upon hiring. These dock workers were skeptical of unions in general, believing them to be corrupt, according to a former employee.

The election was held via mail over seven weeks rather than via in-person voting at ballot boxes because of the pandemic. That decision was made by the NLRB to protect workers and staff. Other elements of the pandemic response may have played a part in the failure of unionization. In the vast warehouse, social distancing was required, so there was no social gathering or union discussion. Desks were spread out. A former Amazon employee said, “You might be in that area for hours and not see a soul.”

Only once before has a warehouse tried to unionize at Amazon. That effort took place in Middletown, Delaware, for a small group of equipment maintenance and repair technicians in 2014. The unionization drive was led by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The attempt at unionization was unsuccessful.

In 2020, only 6.3% of the private sector’s workers were unionized, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics. That number is a 428,000 person decline from the prior year.

Labor leaders say they will increase informal efforts to highlight the company’s labor and business practices by means of walkouts, protests and public relations campaigns. “We’re focused on building a new type of labor movement where we don’t rely on the election process to raise standards,” Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of a Teamsters local in Iowa, said.

Case’s proposed strategy points out a paradox in the labor movement. According to the Gallup Poll, roughly two-thirds of Americans approve of unions, which is up from half in 2009, but it has seldom been more difficult to get a union into a large company.

One reason for this is that labor law provides employers with advantages. The law requires workers to try to unionize at individual worksites, rather than to get them all at once. In a case like this, with Amazon, it would mean hundreds of campaigns. The laws allow employers to aggressively campaign against unions and largely fail to levy financial punishment against employers that threaten or retaliate against organizing workers.

Labor officials have urged Congress to step up scrutiny of Amazon’s labor practices, including the use of mandatory meetings, signs and texts to discourage workers from unionizing. “There have to be consequences for people like Bezos,” Richard Bensinger said. He’s a former AFL-CIO organization director. “We need congressional hearings to publicize this stuff.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of MA said after Bezos refused to appear at a recent Senate hearing on executive pay, “How long will Jeff Bezos thumb his nose at the United States Senate? He has done it in the past, but the winds are blowing from a different direction today.”

Rep. Andy Levin of Michigan believes that Amazon had too much power for the union to win. “The pressure a company like Amazon builds up against you can feel like a 1,000 lb weight on your chest. The company’s goal is to create so much pressure, anxiety and fear — and to make workers feel that pressure will never go away as long as the union is around,” he tweeted.