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Amazon has managed to keep unions out of its ranks since the company’s founding in 1994.
A recent string of events appears to show the extent of Amazon’s efforts to avoid unions and track workplace unrest.
One Amazon warehouse employee is trying to organize his coworkers via an online platform out of a concern for privacy and anonymity.

Amazon warehouse workers have a long history of agitating for change. But the coronavirus crisis has generated new momentum for employees to speak candidly about workplace conditions.

Since March, employees have held protests to demand safer working conditions, created online petitions to draw attention to their concerns and formed new worker groups. The surge of employee activism has raised the question of whether labor unions might try to seize the moment to organize Amazon workers.

Between March and September, the company employed more than 1.37 million front-line Amazon and Whole Foods workers in the U.S. That number doesn’t include the tens of thousands of contracted drivers who are responsible for Amazon’s last-mile deliveries.

Unionizing Amazon’s workforce would be an uphill battle. The company has managed to head off major labor unions since its founding in 1994. Labor unions have organized some of Amazon’s European workforce, but no U.S. facility has successfully formed or joined a union.

“Amazon has always been actively trying to dissuade employees from organizing unions,” said Marcus Courtney, a longtime labor advocate who attempted to unionize call center workers at Amazon in the early 2000s. “That was true 20 years ago and it’s true today.”

Unions stand to disrupt the level of control that Amazon has over its warehouse and delivery employees, like their ability to unilaterally set the pace of work and hourly wages, said Tom Kochan, a professor of industrial relations, work and employment at MIT.


https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/24/how-amazon-prevents-unions-by-surveilling-employee-activism.html