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Bates, a grandmother of seven, was excited that Amazon was coming to Bessemer, Alabama, because of the economic growth she thought it would bring to the area—and the possibility that a job there would allow her to spend more time with her family. to bring.
What she instead found at Amazon was a job with 10-hour shifts that she said were “more strenuous” than the 12-hour days she took at a previous company. The amount of walking it took to get around a warehouse the size of 14 football fields, including going up and down stairs, hurt her knees and caused swelling of her legs, she said.
“If you work 10 hours at the pace they push you to go, the free time is either going to the doctor for something, soaking, resting, taking it easy on your days off,” said Bates, an Amazon employee , in a CNN Business interview this month.
She considered quitting. But Bates determined there was a better answer: fight to make it better. “Why couldn’t I stand still and get a chance to fix something that was broken?”
The face of the battle
More than any other Amazon employee, it was Bates who became the face of this effort, potentially putting her livelihood on the line.
“Amazon brags that it pays workers above minimum wage. What they don’t tell you is what those jobs are really like,” she said. “I learned from the start that if I worked too slowly or had too much free time, I could be disciplined or even fired.” Her testimony sparked a wave of press coverage of Amazon’s warehouse conditions, with Bates’ name at the center.
In a statement at the time, an Amazon spokesperson pushed back on her characterizations: “We take employee feedback seriously, including Ms. Bates,” but we don’t believe her comments represent the more than 90% of her fulfillment center colleagues who say they would Amazon. recommend as a great place to work to friends and family.”
The risks of speaking out so publicly were considerable. “Any time an employee gets involved in organizing with their co-workers, they’re taking a risk, and Jennifer Bates is willing to take that risk on behalf of the people she works with,” said Rebecca Givan, associate professor of labor studies and employment. relations at Rutgers University. “She’s been willing to talk to the media, to talk to Congress, to fight really, really publicly.”
Bates knew this from the start. “I had to be very careful” [of] how I moved, how I spoke and what I did,” she recalls. “What good is it if I lose my job and the work I started isn’t finished?”
For now, Bessemer’s union activity continues—and so does Bates’ sense that she could lose her job at the warehouse, where she still works, before that work is done.
A long way to take on Amazon
Ten years before joining Amazon, Bates worked in a union job at an American pipe factory. She described her colleagues there as “more like family” and said workers “got no disrespect” for being unionized.
There were many issues that Bessemer employees, like Bates, believed could be improved with the help of union representation, including adequate breaks, better procedures for filing and receiving responses to grievances, higher wages, and protections against Amazon’s allegedly wrong policies. to punish employees who raise concerns. (Amazon has repeatedly said safety is a priority and has “zero tolerance” for retaliation against employees who raise concerns.)
To counter the union movement, Amazon sent numerous text messages to employees, attended one-on-one meetings on the warehouse floor, and demanded that they attend group meetings every few shifts before the election. It launched an anti-union website warning against paying dues and posted signs in bathroom stalls.
In a statement to CNN Business earlier this year about the union efforts, Amazon spokesperson Heather Knox said: “We opened this site in March. [2020] and since then, more than 5,000 full-time jobs have been created in Bessemer, with an average wage of $15.30 per hour, including full health care, eyesight, and dental insurance, 50% 401(K) match from day one on the job; in safe, innovative, inclusive environments, with training, continuing education and long-term career growth.”
The aftermath
Prior to her decision to be more up front with union pressures, Bates’ mother expressed some discomfort. “She was the only one who felt a little, you know, suspicious that I was pushing,” Bates said, adding that her mom was coming over. “She knows I have that fire.”
But Bates felt the impact of her Senate statement almost immediately. The day after, a manager told her she was being stripped of her ambassadorship — a role she had enjoyed that allowed her to train new employees at the facility. (According to the NLRB auditor’s recommendations, “the evidence was insufficient to establish that Bates was denied ambassadorship work…because of her sympathy for the Union.”)
“Our employees have a choice whether or not to join a union, and they always have,” Barbara Agrait, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement in response to questions about Bates’s experience, including why she chose her ambassadorship. lost. “As a company, we don’t think unions are the best solution for our employees.”
She also felt a shift in the number of colleagues who looked at her: some seemed ‘afraid’ to talk to her; others said they were informed by her speech. Even now, when she walks into the Amazon warehouse, her badge temporarily fails to scan and she thinks, “Well, today they got me.”
According to Givan, the risk associated with being a vocal workplace organizer can also extend beyond one’s current position to other potential employers.
RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum called it “a very, very scary thing” to speak out as Bates has done. “You introduce yourself to the whole world. You are confronted with all the wealth and power in the universe.”
Bates, he said, “understood the civil rights dimension of what was happening in Bessemer.” About 85% of the workforce at the facility is black and the majority are women, he said.
“For her, it’s a calling,” Appelbaum said.
Bates often talks about her decision to speak out, and even the election results, in spiritual terms: “I believe in fate. I believe God [does] things in His own timing and if it’s part of the journey, then I’m here for it.”
The outcome of that journey so far may not be quite what Bates had in mind, but Givan said the effort has drawn mainstream attention to what employees face when organizing.
Bates, too, is hopeful about the broader effects her voice can have. “I have believed for so many years that companies have devalued employees by thinking that [they’re] not valuable… people have started to stand up and say, you know what? They are nothing without us.”
“We are not pushovers. There has to be a change in this country and we will not stop until there is a change,” she added. “We’re still on the move. We’re still on fire and we won’t stop.”
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