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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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%. 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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 the item from the pod, put it in a tote, and it goes to another area called packing.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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, Friday. I start from 7:15 to 5:45.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When you 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.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: So I come in, I go to the station, I'm a scientist. When I get to my station, I log in with my badge. And on a monitor in front of me, it lets me know what items I need to pick. So when a pod comes around, I pick from the pod, put in the tote, and I hit a button to release that pod and another pod comes around.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Persistent. But from 7:15 until my first break, I pick between 14 to 1,600 points. And you said you've been doing this since about March 7, 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?
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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 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. Of course, it's continuing on moving.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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 started adding up. And when you get a certain amount of TOT time, it leads to a write-up, termination. No employee can't help it when they have to use the bathroom.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: You know, you're tired, you need water, or you don'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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And now there's this unionization movement at your warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. How'd that get started?
--:-- Daryl Richardson: It got started with me, you know. Before I started at 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. I just thought it was just a good place to work. I thought they were going to treat everybody fair.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I'm not the only one that felt like this. But I thought it worked. And I realized it worked about a month or so. I said, oh, man, it ain't what I thought. I felt like, oh, this place ain't right. When you walk up to your station and go to the bathroom, You get doctored for going to the bathroom. It's just a lot of issues that came up while I was there.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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 really realized, oh, there needs to be some changes. So I googled, which union represents Amazon? That's exactly how I put it. Which union represents 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So within I say a day, 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.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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?
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, we're looking for most definitely 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.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it seems 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 lay down before I lay down 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 got to take their kids to the babysitter. You know, you changing our whole life when we do come in late not knowing you get an hour taken away from you because we don't know our schedule changed.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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 getting 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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, give 110 every day, especially if you're renting from three to four hours, you're renting 14 to 1,600 parts a day, and then you're getting treated like that? It's just unbelievable. It just, it ain't right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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?
--:-- Daryl Richardson: At first, I didn't think it was going to be their 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 meetings. 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 or I call it harassment in the means they say anti-union means they say the union don't want them but your dues the union when the union gets 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 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 could take away our pay.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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 me? I say, sure. They ain't want me to speak around employees to let them know that they ain't telling the truth.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's really not a good pay to survive all the time. Cost of living instead of going up. And working for Amazon, $15 ain't enough. The employee's not getting paid for what they do right now. We deserve a whole lot more than $15. I wish Bezos, I wish he could come and do what we do. At least a month. He couldn't do it. Way we work. Nobody would think if they were working and doing what we're doing, feel like that's a good pay rate. It's not.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Daryl Richardson: He is essentially speaking about something that you helped start. How did that feel?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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 know, said, thank you, Mr. President, for all the support. And I appreciate you voicing your opinion, speaking out and supporting us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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. I'm just excited how everybody around the United States nation dealt for us.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Darrell, 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?
--:-- Daryl Richardson: 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. Thank you. Thank you very much.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Darrell 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After a break, what the unionization effort in Bessemer means for workers across the country. I'm Sean Rameswaram. This is Today Explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, you come upstairs, but not the top. You stay a little wide and you do a little walk on home. I sit downstairs, smoke a cigarette. I hear you talking shit because you ain't got nothing to talk about at all. So you turn me to the bar.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from Built Rewards. These days, it seems like everybody has a rewards program. You swipe your card and you get one cent on the hundred dollars. But with your rent, frequently you just pay month after month. You never get anything from it other than that roof over your head. Not anymore, says Built Rewards.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Built Rewards says it lets you earn points on your rent. By paying rent through Built, they say you can earn flexible points that can be redeemed toward hundreds of hotels and airlines, perhaps a future rent payment, your next Lyft ride, and so much more. Your home isn't just where you sleep. It's your community and Bilt wants you to go out and do things in the community.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can eat at your favorite local restaurants, then earn more points. You can get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios. You can enjoy exclusive experiences just for Bilt members every month. When you're ready to travel, they say Bilt points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood wherever you call home by joining Bilt.com slash explained. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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?
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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?
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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?
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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, to me, that's a pretty good deal.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You talk to plenty of other workers, though, who say, listen, I work hard. But the constant monitoring, you know, the quotas we have to hit, you know, 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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 safe modern work environment. And that's mostly a quote.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do employees have recourse though if they feel like it a safe modern work environment if they feel like they have job opportunities for career growth if they feel like their benefits are comprehensive do they have any recourse or is it take it or leave it?
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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 a 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. Like those are things I hear.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I need to be clear, like I have talked to workers who say this is one of the most respectful workplaces I've been in, in sort of, you know, a manual labor job. And I believe the GM of my facility cares about us.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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 like knowing whether someone has a bad day or not and sort of empathizing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: But how is this company responding as a whole? Like, is Jeff Bezos doing something? What's the brass up to right now?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What does Amazon stand to lose here if employees unionize, not only at this Bessemer warehouse, but across the country?
--:-- Jason Del Rey: I think they really believe that a big part of their success is sort of flexibility within their frontline workforce. That means everything from like 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What are the chances of success here for those who want to unionize?
--:-- Jason Del Rey: I'd still be surprised if the vote passes for no other reason than it has never happened before. 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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, you know, 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who these people are at this facility, it being in the South. If the union's going to win out at an Amazon facility, it feels like this would be the time.
--:-- Jason Del Rey: 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.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: 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.
