Today, Explained - Alabama shakes up Amazon

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

Darryl Richardson, a worker at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, explains why he helped initiate a unionization effort that now has President Biden’s support. Recode’s Jason Del Rey explains how the Bessemer vote could be a game changer for American labor. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. It was one year ago this week that much of the United States shut down. It was the beginning of a new reality for a lot of us and the beginning of an enormous year for Amazon.

The company earned $386 billion in 2020, $100 billion more than their previous year. Net profits were up more than 80 percent. The company's stock price soared and Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world. It was just good news on good news on good news for Amazon. But one year later, there's a bit of bad news for the company's brass. Some of its employees at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, want to unionize. The president of the United States has voiced support for their unionization effort. And if they're successful, it could have enormous implications for workers across the country. Daryl Richardson has been leading the effort to unionize his warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. I spoke to him on Sunday, his one-year anniversary on the job

at his Amazon warehouse, where he's what they call a picker. A picker is, you pull an item from the pod, put in a tote, and it goes to another area called packing. So it's consistent, it's fast-paced, it's stressful, and time-consuming. Tell me what a day in your life's like. Okay, my schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I start from 7.15 to 5.45. When I walk inside the door, they got a monitor telling you what station you're going to be on. Lately, I've been on the third floor.

So I come in, I go to the station, I'm assigned to. When I get to my station, I log in with my badge. And on a monitor in front of me, it let me know what items I need to pick. So when a pod come around, I pick from the pod, put in the tote, and I hit a button to release that pod and another pod come around. Persistent. From 7-15 until my first break, I pick between $1,400 to $1,600. And you said you've been doing this since about March 7th, 2020, which is right around the time the country starts to take this pandemic seriously. How has the coronavirus changed the nature of your job, if at all?

Everybody's staying in the house and that's all they're doing is ordering. So it really was stressful because the volume or the amount of parts we have to do was high, very high. And we had to get over 315 to 400 parts out of our work. And that's running. I mean, running. And like I said, it's stressful.

You know, your hands and your wrists be hurting. Your hands may be cramping. Your legs be sore. Because it's continue on moving. And when you leave off your station, your time is calculated. You get so much TOT time. Depends on how long you're off your station when you go into the bathroom

or going to get water. It starts adding up. And when you get a certain amount of TOT time, it leads to write-up termination. No employee can't help it when they have to use the bathroom. You know, you're tired, you need water, or you didn't bring a bottle of water, you got to leave off your station to go get water.

Depends on how far you got to walk. You know, you get doctored. And I feel like that's not fair to be getting doctored for going to the bathroom or going to get a drink of water. You know, when it comes to the pandemic, you don't know who you've been around because we've been having confirmed cases when it comes to who got it. And we don't know who have it. We don't know which floor, which floor the confirmed case is on. You know, you're just taking a chance of not knowing who you've been around.

Because they're not telling us which floor a confirmed case came from, who had it. We're just taking a chance every day of getting it ourselves. So you feel unsafe working and it's scary. Ain't nobody trying to get it, but everybody needs to work. But we're just taking a chance every day

getting Corona. Because everybody got to do what they got to do when it comes to paying their bills or taking care of what they need to take care of you know so it's scary yeah and and now there's this unionization movement at your warehouse in Bessemer Alabama how'd that get started it got started with me you know before I started Amazon I thought it was a great place to work because it's new, it's big, on the outside, beautiful, you know, nice looking building. Oh, we got Amazon coming down here to Alabama.

It just, I just thought it was just a good place to work. I thought they were going to treat everybody fair. And I'm not the only one that felt like this. But after I worked and I realized it worked by the mud or so, I said, oh, man, it ain't what I thought. I felt like, no, this place ain't right. When you walk off your station and go to the bathroom, you getting doctored for going to the bathroom. It's just a lot of issues that came up while I was there. Oh, no.

I can't stay here. I can't work out here as long as they're doing that. So, I guess a couple weeks or I don't know how long it took me to make the phone call. A couple weeks or a month later,

I thought I really realized, oh, there need to be some changes. So, I Googled really realized, oh, it needs to be some changes. So I Google, which union represent Amazon? That's how, that's exactly how I put it. Which union represent Amazon? RSD union came up. It had a little application online, your name, your last name. What do you want? And I put trying to organize. So within, I'd say a day or two, I got a phone call from them

and we talked and we made arrangements to meet and we met one-on-one at first and then after we met one-on-one, a couple of us had a group meeting and we met and then they strategized and told us, you know, what is what, and that's how it got started. So this starts out with just you making an inquiry to this union, the retail, wholesale, and department store union out there. How many people do you have interested in this union in your shop now?

I know we had over 2,000 authorization cards signed. Right now, we're still in the process of getting the balance in, getting everybody to return it. But I know we had over 2,000 authorization cards signed. And give me an idea of how many people work in your Amazon warehouse? So 2,000 of how many? About just 800. Okay, so something like approaching half at least. Yes.

Okay. And what would this union get you? How would it change the way your warehouse works? Well, we're looking for most definite job security and better wages. And when it comes to your safety welfare, better promotions, seniority, respect, how they treat you and our breaks. We work 10 to 11 hours a day.

We only get two breaks. And UPT time is unpaid time. If we late 10 minutes, we want to leave early for 30 minutes. They're going to take an hour of our UPT time, regardless how many minutes you take, they're going to automatically take an hour. If I take an hour and 15 minutes, instead of them taking an hour and 15 minutes, they're going to take two hours. That's not fair. Why take an hour when I was only late

for 15 minutes? Why not just take 15 minutes? And it seemed like just they got everything in place for us to set up and fail. And when it comes to changing your schedule while you sleep, they change our schedule. If I laid out before I laid out and my schedule is 7.15, I wake up in the morning. I got to be at work at 6.15.

Let us know 24 hours in advance if you're going to do it. You know, we got lives, too. You got single moms out there that got to take their kids to the babysitter. You know, you're changing our whole life. And then when we do come in late, not knowing, you get an hour taken away from you because we don't know how our schedule changed. And then they tell you, make sure you check the schedule. How can I check my schedule when I'm asleep? That's not fair.

And, you know, employees get fired for not being six feet apart. Come on now, you got 40 to 50 people walking in and out this plant on breaks. It's hard to be six feet apart when you got that many employees. You know, that's not fair. And they feel like they can do us and treat us any kind of way. Employees tired. It's time for them to stop treating us like that. It's time for them to stop buying us for just anything.

We don't deserve that. Every employee given 110 every day, especially if you're renting from three to four hours, you're renting 1,400 to 1,600 parts a day, and then you're getting treated like that. It's just unbelievable. It just, it ain't right. So, Daryl, you've been involved in this effort to unionize your warehouse for months now, something like five or six months. How has the company responded? At first, I didn't think it was going to be that serious.

It was going to become what it is now. And when they realized, man, they are signing authorization cards. So they started having anti-union means. We were having them every day. They started putting flyers in the bathroom in your stall. Vote no.

The union don't want them but your dues. Why you want to pay dues when you can get it free? Intimidation tactics. I call it harassment. In the means they say, anti-union means they say, the union don't want nothing but your dues. When the union get your dues, they're going to buy themselves new cars or they're going to go on vacations.

They're going to take away your pay. Your benefits are going to drop. The union can't guarantee you anything. You know, in them anti-union means I challenge them when it comes to questioning them about the union. What can y'all guarantee? Y'all prove to us that y'all can take away our pay. Because when I started, we were getting hazard pay.

We were making $17. But y'all prove to us that y'all could take the pay away from us when y'all get ready. When I question them like that, they'll say, can I talk to you one-on-one after the meeting? I say, sure. They ain't want me to speak around employees to let them know that they ain't telling the truth. You mentioned that for a while, because of the coronavirus hazard, you were getting a slight wage increase to $17 an hour, but then they took you back to your regular 15 something an hour at some point, even though you're obviously still at risk. But even so, there was just this fight in Congress last week about raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. What would you

say to all the people who might look at the fact that you're already at $15 and say, seems like you guys at Amazon are being treated pretty fairly? That's really not a good pay to survive off of. Cost of living is steady going up. And working for Amazon, $15 ain't enough. The employees not getting paid for what they do right now. We deserve a whole lot more than $15 ain't enough. The employees not getting paid for what they do right now. We deserve a whole lot more than $15. I wish Benzo, I wish he could come and do what we do.

At least a month. He couldn't do it the way we work. Nobody would think if they were working and doing what we're doing, they're like, that's a good, that's a good pay rate. It's not. Last week, the president of the United States voiced support for the effort to unionize your shop in Bessemer, Alabama. Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union. The law guarantees that choice. And it's your right, not that of an employer. It's your right. No employer can take that right away. So make your voice heard. He is essentially speaking about something that you helped start. How did that feel? Great. And the support the president and everybody else gave, it was overwhelming.

I even dropped a tear because I didn't know it was going to be this big. I really didn't. I didn't know one phone call would lead to something nationwide. It's still unbelievable to me. I even tweeted back, you said thank you Mr. President for all the support and I appreciate you voicing your opinion speaking out and supporting

us you know it's still amazing when it comes to the President Danny Glover it's just unbelievable it really is it's just unbelievable how it's going and I'm just happy It's just unbelievable how it's going.

And I'm just happy. I'm just excited how everybody around the United States nation dealt with us. Daryl, I think that was all I wanted to ask you about. Was there anything I didn't ask you that you wanted to share with people? I think that's it, Sean. I just appreciate you, Sean. All right. Well, thanks again for making time on your Sunday to speak with us. I think that's it, Sean. I just appreciate you, Sean. All right. Well, thanks again for making time on your Sunday to speak with us. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

Daryl Richardson is a picker at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. We reached out to Amazon for comment on Daryl's account of workplace conditions there. They pointed out compensation at Amazon is well above

the federal minimum wage, including health care, vision, dental, and a 401k match. And they said they encourage employees to voice comments and concerns on the job. After a break, what the unionization effort in Bessemer means for workers across the country. I'm Sean Romsferm. This is Today Explained. Got nothing to talk about at all. So you took me to the party and I did all the work. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter.

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This deal is exclusive to listeners and available just in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions do apply. Jason Del Rey, senior correspondent, Recode. You've been writing about Amazon for almost a decade now. How big a deal is this effort to unionize in Bessemer, Alabama? It's a huge deal because if successful, it could totally overhaul how Amazon treats its warehouse workers across the country. The contract that these workers negotiate with Amazon will only work for that warehouse. That said, it will show a path for other union organizers as well as other workers

that, you know what, we've thought about this for a while, this union idea, and maybe we have a shot. I'd also say, even if it fails, I'd be shocked if we don't see another attempt at another facility just because getting this far with Amazon shows that there's some desire there among a segment of the workforce. And so I'd expect to see another attempt, even with sort of a negative outcome for the union at the election. And Daryl, let us know that there's like, what, some 5,000 plus employees at just his warehouse alone. How many employees might this affect if this does catch on like wildfire across the country? So Amazon's frontline workforce is over half a million workers in the U.S. alone.

They're the second largest private sector employer in the U.S. only after Walmart. And some estimates have them eclipsing Walmart within the next few years. So it's a big freaking deal. I wonder, in all the reporting you've done on Amazon, do you hear the same kinds of complaints Daryl's describing? The tracking of bathroom breaks, what he would characterize as this really unfair way of docking employees' time if they're a little late, changing the schedule

last minute, and then holding that against employees if they don't see it in time. Did you hear about that kind of stuff from anyone else? It's an interesting topic because you will talk to some Amazon workers who say, listen, the company on day one tells us this is hard work. I know going in that it's going to be a really tough job. But where I live or for my work experience or my educational experience, starting pay at $15 or $15.30 an hour plus benefits on day one, like to me, that's a pretty good deal. You talk to plenty of other workers, though, who say, listen, I work hard, but the constant monitoring, the quotas we have to hit, in Amazon terminology, that's called the rate, hundreds of items an hour I need to pick or pack.

And my direction is coming from algorithms and robots bringing me stuff. This is sort of inhumane. And maybe I can go to the bathroom, but my time away is tracked. And, you know, this is just not what a workplace should look like in the 21st century. And so it is common to hear sort of both some version of both of those points of view from people who have worked in this, you know, one of their facilities for significant periods of time. And Amazon made this assertion when we got in touch with them that they're basically already offering their employees the benefits that a union would, that they have industry-leading pay, comprehensive benefits, opportunities for career growth, and a a safe modern work environment. That's mostly a quote. Do employees have recourse though if they don't feel like it's a safe modern work environment? If they don't feel like they have job opportunities for career growth? If they don't feel

like their benefits are comprehensive? Do they have any recourse or is it take it or leave it? The workforce is so big that, you know, over the years I hear employees who say, listen, like I had this complaint about either this type of role I was in that was too taxing or my shifts changing too often or my manager being an ass and I went to HR and they ignored it. Those are things I hear. But I need to be clear, I have talked to workers who say, this is one of the most respectful workplaces I've been in, in sort of a manual labor job. And I believe the GM of my facility cares about us. One of the biggest

issues, though, that I don't think Amazon will really talk about publicly is a lot of your experience can depend on who runs your facility, whether that person is a good people manager or super data-focused, or whether your immediate manager, not even the facility head, is someone who cares about getting out from behind the computer and looking at the data and knowing whether someone has a bad day or not and sort of empathizing. But I think for sure over time, Amazon has become more and more of a data-focused company, and that can lead to managers caring above all about sort of the output of their workers and caring less about their well-being. And so I think when workers tell me that's their experience in their facility, I believe that,

but it's just not the case across the board. So the reality is there's a lot of nuance to this situation. Daryl told us a little bit about how his particular warehouse is responding to this unionization effort. And it sounded like the kind of stuff you'd expect, like signs about, you know, it being a terrible idea that's going to garnish your wages and give you nothing in return and the bathrooms and stuff like that. But how is this company responding as a whole? Like, is Jeff Bezos doing something? What's the brass up to right now? You know, I had a source tell me that it's being treated like, quote, a crisis internally. And I think we can see that by the behavior, you know, that we're seeing at the facility itself. And I think there is a fair question to be asked about if Amazon was so confident in how it treats its workers,

would it really need to go all out like it is to convince its workforce that the union isn't right for them? You know, I understand they want to get their messaging out in some way, but I don't know. It feels really aggressive for a company that says this doesn't represent how the majority of our workers feel. What does Amazon stand to lose here if employees unionize, not only at this Bessemer warehouse, but across the country. I think they really believe that a big part of their success is sort of flexibility within their frontline workforce. That means everything from being able to say there's mandatory overtime this time of year, to your shift's going to change,

to we're going to totally change your role starting tomorrow to your quotas are now 20% more than they were a month ago because it's peak season, you know, and all of those types of ideas. I think they truly believe that that is a key to their success. And all of that just flexibility, as they would call it, is at risk when a union comes in. But when it really comes down to it, my opinion is they fear, you know, that they won't be able to get packages out the door as quickly as they do today. And that is a huge competitive threat, since one of Amazon's main advantages over competitors is the speed at which they deliver stuff to customer doors. And I think they believe, whether rightfully or wrongfully,

that if a union enters this space, there are going to be changes that will stop them from putting stuff out the door as quickly as they want. And in turn, maybe give a leg up to competitors or just, you know, one of their advantages perhaps goes away. What are the chances of success here for those who want to unionize? I'd still be surprised if the vote passes for no other reason than it has never happened before. for. And so it's hard to bet on a union winning out when Amazon's been so successful for so long at stopping union efforts. That said, I think this is sort of the perfect storm

for this type of vote. I think this is the best chance any unions ever had. And I think that's mainly as a result of two big reasons. One is the spotlight of the pandemic and what working in a pandemic environment has meant for frontline workforces, being in close proximity to others, not having a choice about whether to stay home and work from home or not. I think that's one crucial component that has gotten some workers and organizers behind this specific effort. The other is, as the president of the union told me, the South, there's a deep connection between union efforts and the civil rights movement. And the union says that 80 to 85% of the Bessemer workforce are Black Americans. And so that has been sort of another facet of this with the Black Lives Matter movement. You know, who these people are at this facility, it being in the South.

The union's going to win out at an Amazon facility feels like this would be the time. I think a victory would simply symbolize to anyone interested in organizing their workplace that if it could be done at Amazon, it could be done just about anywhere. And so I would expect tailwinds for union efforts elsewhere for sure. Jason Del Rey. He hosted the first season of the Land of the Giants podcast from the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's all about the rise of Amazon. Thank you.