The struggle to organize warehouse labor
Unions have hit brick walls in trying to represent warehouse, distribution center workers
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Long road to organizing warehouse workers (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
The effort by the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store union to organize 5,800 workers at Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse is being seen as a defining moment for the organized labor movement. The union has pushed the world’s most powerful company to the limit, earning plaudits from supporters and observers for its cohesion and determination. It even won the support of President Joe Biden, who in a near-unprecedented step for a sitting U.S. president defended the Amazon workers’ “free and fair choice to join a union.”