Petitions seeking a vote on establishing a labor union are being circulated
among 400 customer service reps at Amazon.com and the giant
e-tailer reportedly is calling meetings to discuss how to handle the
organizing effort.
The union push comes from Seattle reps who “feel that Amazon has strayed from
its goals of providing superior customer service by failing to treat its own
customer service workers with respect,” according to a Web site run by the Washington Alliance of
Technology Workers.
The alliance describes itself as “a democratic, worker-driven union for all
high-tech employees. We provide a strong and effective voice for IT
professionals both in public policy and in the workplace.”
WashTech calls itself a local affiliate of The Newspaper Guild and the
Communications Workers of America and is partially funded by a grant from the
latter.
“This campaign should end the myths that high-tech workers in the new economy
do not want to seek representation on the job, and that unions are irrelevant
in the 21st century,”
said WashTech Co-Founder and Organizer Marcus Courtney.
Issues for workers include job security, mandatory overtime, sudden shift
scheduling changes and a stressful work environment, WashTech said.
Amazon.com, meanwhile, said the organizing effort is not the first such move and
is nothing new.
WashTech, however, on its site quoted from what it claimed were intercepted
internal e-mails at Amazon, saying that an Amazon exec has called an
“all-hands meeting” for
Friday to discuss union organizing efforts with the workers involved.
In addition, WashTech said managers have already met to discuss the union
recognition campaign, and learn how to talk to individual workers regarding a
union.
That, however, is standard practice among companies facing organizing efforts
as top execs communicate to middle management what can and can’t be done.
If a majority of the workers sign cards calling for an election, the union
could submit cards to the National Labor Relations Board requesting a vote.
The news had next to no effect on Amazon’s stock price. Shares were trading
down 50 cents at $27.31 at mid-day.
