WASHINGTON — Amazon is aligned with the Biden administration
on several fronts.
It backs a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage. It has pledged
to meet all the goals of the Paris climate agreement on reducing emissions. It
has met with the administration to discuss how to help with the distribution of
COVID-19 vaccines.
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But a union drive at one of its warehouses in Alabama has
the retailer doing a political balancing act: staying on the good side of
Washington’s Democratic leaders while squashing an organizing effort that
President Joe Biden has signaled his support for.
Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, have been voting for
weeks on whether to form a union. The voting ends Monday. Approval would be a
first for Amazon workers in the United States and could energize the labor
movement across the country.
Labor organizers have tapped into dissatisfaction with
working conditions in the warehouse, saying Amazon’s pursuit of efficiency and
profits makes the conditions harsh for workers. The company counters that its
starting wage of $15 an hour exceeds what other employers in the area pay, and
it has urged workers to vote against unionizing.
Labor leaders and liberal Democrats have seized on the union
drive, saying it shows how Amazon is not as friendly to workers as the company
says it is. Some of the company’s critics are also using its resistance to the
union push to argue that Amazon should not be trusted on other issues, like
climate change and the federal minimum wage.
Amazon has always fought against unionizing by its workers.
But the vote in Alabama comes at a perilous moment for the company. Lawmakers
and regulators — not competitors — are some of its greatest threats, and it has
spent significant time and money trying to keep the government away from its
business.
Amazon’s business practices are the subject of antitrust
investigations at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and in multiple state
attorney general offices. Biden on Monday nominated Lina Khan, a legal scholar
who came to prominence with her critique of the company, for a seat on the FTC.
“I think everyone is seeing through the PR at this point and
focusing on both their economic and political power,” Sarah Miller, a critic of
Amazon, said about the company. Miller, who runs the American Economic
Liberties Project, an antitrust think tank, added, “I think the narrative is
cooked now on their status as a monopoly, their status as an abusive employer
and their status as one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in Washington, DC”
Drew Herdener, Amazon’s vice president for worldwide
communications, said in a statement that the company shared common ground with
the Biden administration on climate change, immigration reform, the minimum
wage and pandemic policy, and was “seeing really positive collaboration on
those fronts” with the White House.
“As it relates to progressive Democrats in general, we’ve
been surprised by some of the negative things we’ve seen certain members say in
the press and on social media,” he said. “If there’s a progressive company in
this country, it’s Amazon. Find me another large company paying two times the
minimum wage, providing great health benefits from day one, 95 percent
education reimbursement, safe working environment, and so on. We really think we
are an example of what a US company should be doing for its employees.”
Amazon spent $18.7 million on federal lobbying last year,
compared with $2.1 million a decade ago, according to the Center for Responsive
Politics. Its lobbyists press their employer’s case on a variety of issues,
like how drones are regulated and the laws that govern pharmacies.
Consumers adore Amazon. In late 2019, a national survey by
The Verge, a technology news site, found that 91 percent had a favorable view
of the retail giant. When professors at Georgetown and New York University
asked Americans in 2018 which institutions they had the most confidence in,
only the military ranked higher than Amazon.
Still, when CEO Jeff Bezos testified before Congress last
year, he faced accusations that the company squeezes the small businesses that
use its online marketplace. A liberal philanthropic organization funded a
network of activists to press Amazon on privacy, competition and labor issues.
They have also attacked Bezos, the richest person in the world by some
measures, for his personal wealth.
Amazon has made efforts to reach out to the new
administration. Dave Clark, who runs the company’s consumer business, sent a
letter to the White House in January offering to help with the distribution of
the coronavirus vaccine and met virtually with Jeff Zients, the White House’s
coronavirus coordinator, to discuss the vaccine rollout.
In December, the company also hired lobbyist Jeff Ricchetti,
whose brother, Steve Ricchetti, is a longtime aide to Biden and now a counselor
to the president. In the final quarter of last year, Amazon paid Jeff Ricchetti
$60,000, according to disclosure forms he filed with the government.
The company’s top lobbying and communications executive, Jay
Carney, was a communications director for Biden during the Obama
administration. President Barack Obama later named Carney the White House press
secretary. He has deep relationships with Biden’s inner circle, and has played
in a garage band with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Under Carney’s leadership, Amazon has taken steps to satisfy
its liberal critics. In 2018, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attacked the
company over its wages. Not long after that, the company announced that it
would raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour and push federal policymakers to do
the same.
“We listened to our critics, thought hard about what we
wanted to do and decided we want to lead,” Bezos said in a statement at the
time.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California both support the unionization effort, as do
many other Democrats in Congress.
“We’ve got to protect every worker’s right to form and join
a union, and to bargain collectively for better pay, quality health care, a
safer workplace and a secure retirement,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.,
where Amazon has its main headquarters. “That absolutely includes the Amazon
workers in Alabama, just like workers in Washington state and across our
country.”
Amazon’s opposition to the union drive could scuttle some of
the goodwill it established among Democrats with its support for a higher
federal minimum wage, some liberals said.
Sanders said he appreciated Amazon’s help on the minimum
wage.
“On the other hand,” he said, “to my mind, I find it hard to
understand why Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and the wealthiest guy in the
world, worth about $182 billion, is spending millions of dollars fighting a
union organizing effort in Alabama, where his workers are trying to organize
for better wages and better working conditions.”
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