Amazon crushed the Alabama union drive - can the Teamsters do better?

[Omaha Steve]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/24/amazon-alabama-union-drive-teamsters

The Teamsters union is rich, strong, and experienced – and it’s ready to help workers and give Amazon a headache

The announcement that the Teamsters – one of America’s most powerful unions – is going to mount an ambitious campaign to unionize Amazon warehouses across the US presents the e-retailing colossus with a far bigger threat than the recent effort to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama ever did.

In Alabama, Amazon’s fierce anti-union press crushed the organizing drive by a small union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). And besides, Amazon had a significant home-field advantage in bright red Alabama. For Amazon, the Alabama face-off felt like a one-and-done win against a junior varsity squad.

But the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with 1.3 million members, is a far larger, richer, stronger union, and has a century of experience mobilizing and unionizing warehouse workers. Not only that, the Teamsters will mount drives in many places where unions are popular and powerful and arguably have a home-court advantage – think California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey and Washington state. In confronting the Teamsters, Amazon will no doubt feel it’s being plunged into a never-ending, head-to-head competition against an Olympic-caliber opponent.

It’s one thing for Amazon to deploy its crack team of anti-union lawyers and consultants to stomp out a union drive at a single warehouse center in Alabama, but it will be quite another thing for Amazon and its anti-union Swat team if the Teamsters mount union drives in 20 or 30 warehouses at once.

FULL story at link above.

[RainCaster]

1. The Teamsters are very well connected

If they set up strike lines around Amazon warehouses, nobody will cross them. All Amazon shipments come to a halt. Bezos needs to get humble and rethink how he treats his workers.

[Indykatie]

2. I Think the Solo Effort in Alabama Was a Strategic Mistake

In my chats with several leaders in various Unions including one from the UAW none were optimistic about Alabama.