by Lee Fang
Amazon is bringing on a set of well-trained union suppression consultants in its high-profile fight to keep its massive warehouse workforce free of organized labor.
The Seattle-based conglomerate recently retained a consultant named Russell Brown to help thwart the union election that began recently at its fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, new disclosures show.
Brown was brought on by Amazon on January 25 for a contract to help persuade Amazon’s Alabama employees not to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU, a union that is affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers, also known as the UFCW. He is paid $3,200 per day, plus expenses, for the work.
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Brown is the head of RWP Labor, which touts itself as a specialty firm that assists companies in “maintaining a union free workplace.” The company features a team of consultants that includes a former International Brotherhood of Teamsters trainer who now assists corporations with defeating union campaigns. The firm brags that it has won many previous anti-union drives and specializes in training company leaders, persuading employees, and developing corporate social responsibility plans devised to prevent union interference.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brown also serves as the president of the Center for Independent Employees, a think tank that has received funding from the billionaire Koch network that routinely lobbies to weaken the political power of labor unions.
The vote at the Bessemer warehouse could be pivotal. If a majority of votes cast of the 5,800 workers at the facility, located in the suburbs outside Birmingham, favor the union, they will form Amazon’s first unionized facility in the U.S.
The vote at the Bessemer warehouse could be pivotal.
Amazon has worked furiously to derail the effort. In recent weeks, the company has sent mass texts to workers warning them against voting to join the union, set up an anti-union website, and sponsored Facebook ads urging workers to vote “no.”
The RWDSU has said that Amazon has also enrolled workers into “classes” in which instructors have attempted to scare workers about the supposed dangers of unionization, with false claims that unionization may decrease wages. According to a report from Wired, when workers challenged these claims, some were “called to the front of the room where their badges were photographed,” in an apparent attempt at intimidation.
The company also lost a bid to compel the union election to be held in person, a demand viewed widely as an attempt to hold last-minute coercive meetings to discourage union support. Election ballots were mailed to workers last Monday for a process that will continue over the next several weeks.
Brown, records show, has engaged in anti-union consulting work for decades. He has served similar roles in persuading employees not to join a union on behalf of UPS, General Electric, Krispy Kreme, Kumho Tire, ProPacific Fresh, and the St. Joseph Regional Medical Center hospitals, among other clients.
Through the Center for Independent Employees…