An employee uses an automated packaging machine to create a made-to-measure bag for small items at the Amazon OXR1 fulfillment center in Oxnard, California, August 21, 2024. A new paper on Amazon’s anti-union efforts at its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse is the first academic study to examine the ways Amazon has leveraged algorithms to crush pro-union movements inside one of its sprawling warehouses. The study , published by researcher Teke Wiggin of Northwestern University, was compiled using dozens of worker interviews and FOIA requests to the National Labor Relations Board. Ultimately, the 2021 union vote in Bessemer ended with workers voting against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) by a count of 1,798 to 738 out of 5,867 workers eligible to vote, proving that the sprawling surveillance […]
Original web page at prospect.org
