Voters From Both Parties Support Unionization for Amazon Workers
By Lew Blank
Amazon has been exploiting its workers for decades, and now it’s facing the largest unionization push in company history.
This week, despite persistent scare tactics from Amazon, the nearly 6,000 workers at the company’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama began voting to form a union. If a majority vote “yes,” it could improve break times, coronavirus health protocols, and worker safety at the Bessemer warehouse, and spark a chain reaction of unionization for Amazon employees across the country.
Amazon has done everything in its power to block the vote and scare employees into voting “no.” The company has distributed flyers, created mandatory meetings, and texted workers up to five times per day telling them to vote against unionization. It even launched a website telling workers to #DoItWithoutDues (referring to the dues that union members would pay), and according to reporting from More Perfect Union Amazon changed traffic light patterns to prevent union organizers from interacting with employees.
While the company argues that it already creates a safe environment for its workers, a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday indicates the opposite. The lawsuit claims that Amazon has engaged in a "flagrant disregard for health and safety requirements," including inadequate contact tracing, poor cleaning, and failure to close any portion of a New York facility even after receiving notice of workers’ positive coronavirus tests.
In a new survey this week, we find that a strong majority of voters — 69 percent — support Amazon employees’ efforts to unionize, with just 19 percent opposed. Importantly, we find that this support isn’t limited to Democratic voters — it extends across partisan lines to self-described Independents and Republicans as well. Specifically, unionization for Amazon employees has a 72-point margin of support among Democrats, a 49-point margin of support among Independents, and a 24-point margin of support among Republicans.
Amazon has struck back with aggressive messaging in an effort to convince workers that union membership would damage, not improve, their working conditions. Its website states: “don’t buy that dinner, don’t buy those school supplies, don’t buy those gifts because you won’t have that almost $500 you paid in dues. WHY NOT save the money and get the books, gifts & things you want?”
We find that voters oppose these anti-union scare tactics. A 40-point margin of Democrats, a 34-point margin of Independents, and a four-point margin of Republicans oppose Amazon’s efforts to stop employees from unionizing.
We also tested the same question on public opinion of Amazon’s anti-union tactics after presenting respondents with statements from both sides: one argument stated that workers should be able to vote on union membership without intimidation, and another highlighted Amazon’s counter-argument that the company is simply informing employees about the pros and cons of unions and doing nothing wrong.
We find that voters strongly reject Amazon’s anti-union messaging. After receiving these statements, voters agreed with the argument that Amazon should stop its anti-union tactics by a 29-point margin.
The verdict is clear: as Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama attempt to become the first of the company's U.S. employees to unionize, voters from across the political spectrum have their backs and firmly reject Amazon’s attempts to stifle their vote.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a writer at Data for Progress and a Master of Public Affairs candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
From February 12 to February 15, 2021, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1169 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±2.9 percentage points.