Amazon pushes for in-person union vote

SEATTLE — Amazon wants the upcoming unionization election at its Bessemer, Ala., warehouse to be held in person, arguing against National Labor Relations Board guidance to hold mail-in balloting in the middle of the pandemic.

The e-commerce giant late Thursday appealed the ruling by an NLRB hearing officer a week ago to allow about 6,000 workers to take seven weeks, starting Feb. 8, to cast their ballots by mail to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

Amazon argued in one of two filings that the agency’s pandemic-voting policy is flawed, in part because it fails to define what a COVID-19 “outbreak” actually is.

That guidance “reflected assumptions developed comparatively earlier in the pandemic — before scientific understanding of the virus and possible precautions had developed to where it is today,” Amazon says in the filing.

A union spokeswoman declined to comment.. An Amazon spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.