What Amazon Can Learn from a Bruising Victory in Bessemer, Alabama
Listen more carefully to employees, address its relationship with Black workers and reconsider the transitory nature of jobs in its warehouses.
Amazon.com Inc. always had the upper hand in its high-profile battle with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union over its fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama. It had the deeper pockets, of course, and with mandatory workplace “information sessions,” could slyly proselytize on the shop floor against the union and the financial burdens of membership.
Beyond that, Amazon also enjoyed a stark economic calculus. Three years ago, the Bessemer region wooed Amazon with an incentive package worth an estimated $51 million, one of the largest financial enticements the company has ever received to open a warehouse. At around the same time, the nearby city of Birmingham constructed three giant faux-Amazon cardboard boxes around town, part of an unsuccessful promotional stunt to try to lure Amazon’s second headquarters to the city. Like a lot of other states, Alabama wanted Amazon and its jobs in a time of widespread economic anxiety.