Posts tagged warehouse
Opinion: Algorithmic surveillance helped Amazon crush unionizing effort
March 21, 2025 // Now, in a critical study titled "Weaponizing the Workplace: How Algorithmic Management Shaped Amazon's Antiunion Campaign in Bessemer, Alabama," Teke Wiggin, a researcher at Northwestern University, says that Amazon might have pressured workers to vote in a certain way. According to Wiggin, Amazon might have leveraged “the specific control technique of algorithmic management to repel (not just prevent) collective action by workers.” “The findings reveal that employers can weaponize elements or effects of algorithmic management against unions via repurposing devices that algorithmically control workers, engaging in 'algorithmic slack-cutting,' and exploiting patterns of social media activity encouraged by algorithmic management,” the paper says.
Stop & Shop and warehouse union reach tentative contract agreement
March 2, 2025 // A strike involving Stop & Shop supermarkets was averted Friday with a tentative agreement. Stop & Shop and Teamsters Local 25 released a joint statement: "Teamsters Local 25 and Stop & Shop today reached a tentative agreement on a new, six-year contract for associates at Stop & Shop’s Freetown distribution center. As a result, and pending ratification, the Freetown distribution center will continue operations, preserving more than 900 union jobs.
Stop & Shop says it will close Mass. distribution center if no contract is reached
February 25, 2025 // The statement went on to say that if an agreement is not reached by Feb. 28, the company will outsource the warehouse work and shut the facility down. "This is not a decision we take lightly, and we care deeply about protecting these union jobs and maintaining our presence in Freetown. It is critical that the local collaborates with us in achieving the labor savings needed to do so," the statement reads.
Amazon workers reject union in vote at North Carolina warehouse
February 19, 2025 // Amazon workers at a facility near Raleigh, North Carolina, overwhelmingly voted against unionizing on Saturday. Of the 3,276 ballots cast, there were 2,447 votes opposing the union and 829 in favor, according to the National Labor Relations Board. There were 77 challenged ballots, a gap that’s too narrow to change the outcome of the election. The results still need to be certified by the NLRB.
Millions of men missing from US labor force
February 17, 2025 // Roughly 7 million American men are missing from the U.S. labor force. Vice President of General Economics and Trade at the Cato Institute Scott Lincicome says the trend started in the 1960s, but the vast majority of the men who aren’t working are unemployed for reasons other than labor market issues. However, the economy still needs workers.
Amazon and Elon Musk’s SpaceX challenge labor agency’s constitutionality in federal court
November 20, 2024 // Attorneys for Amazon and Elon Musk’s SpaceX argued in a federal appeals court Monday that the National Labor Relations Board’s structure is unconstitutional, advancing a legal fight that may last into the Trump administration where Musk is expected to oversee bureaucratic cost-cutting. A panel of three judges at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans heard separate oral arguments in the SpaceX and Amazon lawsuits, which the two companies initiated after the labor agency filed complaints against them in disputes about workers’ rights and union organizing.
US labor board bans mandatory anti-union meetings in ruling against Amazon
November 13, 2024 // The decision could also be overturned by the board when it gains a Republican majority, as the agency often reverses itself after changes in leadership. President-elect Donald Trump could have a Republican-led board in place as soon as next year. At least 10 U.S. states including New York, California, and most recently Alaska have banned captive audience meetings or prohibited employers from disciplining workers who do not attend them. The NLRB said its decision would only be applied moving forward and not to pending cases.
San Diego-Area Reliance Metal Center Employees Overwhelmingly Vote to Remove Teamsters Union Officials
September 9, 2024 // The successful decertification at Reliance Metal Center comes as decertification petition filings have gone up over 40 percent since 2020 (according to NLRB data) and workers are joining unions in record low numbers. Despite workers’ desire to get away from unions that don’t serve their interests, the Biden-Harris NLRB recently issued a final rule which will make it much harder for rank-and-file workers to exercise their right to vote out union officials they oppose. One part of the new rule lets union officials prevent decertification votes from going forward by filing unverified “blocking charges” alleging employer interference.
The labor movement could prove pivotal this election year
September 5, 2024 //
Kroger e-commerce center workers vote to join Teamsters
May 23, 2024 // “We expected better from these two longtime Teamster employers. Clearly, they are more interested in guaranteeing big payouts for management,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement at the time of that announcement. Last December, the Teamsters urged the Federal Trade Commission to reject Kroger and Albertsons’ plan to sell hundreds of stores and other assets to assuage antitrust concerns surrounding their proposed combination.