(NewsNation) — Workers at Amazon warehouses in two states were voting Friday on whether to unionize. The online retail giant had ramped up anti-union rhetoric ahead of those votes.
Some workers say it’s been going too far — accusing the company of engaging in years of worker intimidation.
If either vote succeeds, it will be the first time workers in the U.S. have formed a union at Amazon.
For the next five days, thousands of workers at a warehouse called JFK8 on Staten Island will be casting ballots.
Friday, at the company’s facility in Bessemer, Alabama, voting wrapped up, concluding a nearly two-month mail-in campaign. Amazon won the first vote last year, but the National Labor Relations Board ruled the company interfered with the vote and ordered a new one.
It has been a contentious fight. There was a protest outside Amazon’s New York corporate offices on Jeff Bezos’ birthday in January, and a rally in New York’s Times Square the month before.
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Amazon employee Brett Daniels during the Times Square event. “I think it’s huge for working-class liberation.”
In the drive to unionize a web-based retailer, it’s no surprise that much of it is being fought online. There’s one website for the New York workers, another for Alabama.
Amazon had an anti-union website, “DoItWithoutDues.com,” but it has been taken down.
Still, workers say they’ve been getting intimidating letters and texts from the company, which has generated some high-profile attention in Washington, D.C.
“It is also no great secret that in Alabama, in fact, throughout this country, we have millions of people who are working for starvation wages,“ said Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Amazon pays a starting salary averaging $18 per hour, and says it already offers most of what union leaders are looking for.
“Our employees are the heart and soul of Amazon,” the company said in a statement. “And we’ve always worked hard to listen to them.”