I am wondering why I read articles about employees voting on unionizing across different Amazon warehouses in US. What kind of majority is required to start a union?
What happens if vote goes for NO?
Where I live, at least 10 people are required to start a union, you fill documentation, give it to court clerks and they register your union – no voting needed. There can be multiple unions within 1 company. There can be unions across whole industries etc.
In: 12
Unions in the USA come in two parts.
First, it the “Local”. essentially the individual “branches” of the union that make up workers for a specific area or a specific company. For example if you become an electrician, chances are you will join “Local XYZ” (where XYZ is usually a number).
Then, all those “locals” band together into a “national” group, in the case of electricians, “IBEW, or International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.” that then really coordinates and organizes these thousands of workers so they can all benefit from group negotiations.
Now, in the USA when you here about individual locations or stores or warehouses forming unions, it is because they are the first of these workers to be forming unions, there is no national or international organization yet, just a bunch of individual locals forming. This is why workers need to vote, they are voting to form these locals, which can then band together into a nation wide group. For example with all of the amazon warehouse workers trying to form a union, in the next couple years we might see the “International Brotherhood of Warehouse/Shipping Workers” form that lets all warehouse/shipping workers group together. Or for Starbucks maybe the “International Brotherhood of Café Workers” forms and allows all the coffee/bake shop employees to group together.
But until that over-all giant body gets established, all the individual work places need to vote to form a union to get the ball rolling.
Edit: to be clear I am not a union organizer or representative, this is just based off my knowledge from people I know who ARE part of unions. So if I am wrong somewhere let me know.
To form a union in the United States most of the time it starts with workers reaching out to an already established union in a similar trade for assistance. For example if you’re a building engineer and you think it might be beneficial for your team to be unionized you’d reach out to a building engineer’s union. This is because actually getting a union established requires a non-trivial amount of paperwork and once underway requires legal advice which the union can provide.
The first step is to solicit support from other workers in the form of a petition. Union support cards or a petition are signed by workers interested in joining the union, and if more than 30% of the people in a group indicate support the National Labor Relations Board will conduct a union election. The election process is highly regulated because employers will vigorously fight unionization efforts with every remedy possible. To protect workers the NLRB election rules prevent things like retaliatory action against organizing employees, promising employees raises/bonuses if they don’t vote for the union, locations of ballot boxes and how they are configured, what can and can’t be done by organizers on the property, etc.
Large companies like Amazon will use every trick in the book to skew the vote their way, in some cases violating the rules enough to trigger penalties and voiding of elections/do-overs. This in it of itself can be a strategy because the company has far more resources and money to fight an effort versus a union, and every day without union representation saves them money. A small penalty and more time to make their case with employees works in their favor.
Once a vote is conducted and if it is in favor of establishing a union the NLRB certifies the union as a designated representative for workers at the company. Each side is directed to establish a bargaining committee to work out the terms and conditions of the contract. This part of the process can go on for a long time, again because the company benefits from not having a union so every day without a union is a win. The NLRB has numerous rules with respect to this part of the process to avoid abuse, but companies still try to stretch this out as much as possible.
Once a contract is negotiated it is submitted by the union representatives to the members for a vote. If the vote is successful the contract is “ratified”, and it becomes the guiding document for labor/management relations going forward.
Union contracts typically expire after a certain number of years – 3 to 5 years being the most common. As a contract approaches expiration management and the union negotiate a new one. Each side creates their own bargaining committee, and the sides meet regularly to work out a new contract. If terms cannot be negotiated and an impasse is reached the union can respond with a strike and management can respond with a lock out. Some contracts contain a no-strike clause which prevents this, but unions can implement other measures to force pressure on the company.
see video about uniion busting from Last Week Tonight: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8dUXRpoy8)
should explain more than just creating unions
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