Amazon UK Warehouse Workers Win Right to a Unionization Vote
Amazon workers at one U.K. warehouse have won the right to vote on unionization after a regulatory body ruled in their favor.
The Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), a government body that oversees trade union recognition and collective bargaining agreements in the U.K., accepted the GMB Union’s application for a recognition vote on Thursday.
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Although hundreds of warehouse staff have organized under the 500,000-member GMB, Amazon has never officially recognized the employees as officially unionized. If GMB was to be recognized, Amazon would have to negotiate with GMB on matters relating to pay, worker safety, hours and benefits like holidays.
“Amazon bosses have been sent a clear and unapologetic message from their own workers that they refuse poverty pay and unsafe working condition; they demand dignity at work and a union to represent them,” said Amanda Gearing, a senior organizer at GMB.
Known as “BHX4,” the warehouse in Coventry, England has been a major hotbed of labor action since January 2023, staging strikes across 30 days.
GMB originally applied for statutory union recognition to the CAC last May before rescinding the application a month later, accusing Amazon of bringing in more than 1,000 extra staff members to skew the decision. The e-commerce giant denied the mass hiring.
The CAC will now appoint an independent organization to arrange a legally binding vote of workers, with a ballot timetable likely to be announced in the coming weeks.
The regulator said that while it had not found that 50 percent of warehouse workers were members, it did accept GMB’s bid for a ballot to be held on the grounds that 1,100 of the 3,088 workers employed in the bargaining unit listed themselves as union members, or roughly 35.62 percent of those employed at the facility.
“Although there is a dispute about the extent to which employees joined the Union for financial gain and/or for reasons which do not relate to a desire for collective bargaining, union membership of 35.62 percent in a proposed bargaining unit of some 3,088 is a relatively high proportion,” the CAC panel’s ruling said.
Upon noting that Amazon did not provide any evidence to show that any members of the union would be unlikely to favor recognition in a vote, “in such circumstances, support of recognition would be likely to surpass 35.62 percent by a margin which would take the total support to over 50 percent.”
If the CAC had found that more than half of the Amazon workers at Coventry were already GMB union members, then Amazon would formally have had to recognize the union without a vote.
“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union. They always have. We regularly review our pay to ensure we offer competitive wages and benefits,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “We also work hard to provide great benefits, a positive work environment and excellent career opportunities. These are just some of the reasons people want to come and work at Amazon, whether it’s their first job, a seasonal role or an opportunity for them to advance their career.”
The spokesperson noted that Amazon’s minimum starting pay has increased to a range of 12.30 pounds ($15.15) and 13 pounds ($16) per hour depending on the warehouse’s location, a 20 percent increase over two years and 50 percent since 2018.
But the U.K.-based employees have been unimpressed with the wage hikes, having repeatedly indicated since last year that they are seeking a pay bump to 15 pounds ($18.50) an hour.
GMB would be the first union to be recognized by Amazon in Europe, if the 50 percent participation threshold is passed via a vote.
“From day one of GMB’s fight for union rights at Amazon it has been a modern-day David and Goliath battle,” said Gearing in a statement. “One year on this is a truly historic moment as workers stand up against the company’s relentless anti-union propaganda. Workers have won against the odds and will now be given a legally binding say on forming Europe’s first recognized union at Amazon.”
In the U.S., Amazon has yet to recognize the first union that voted to organize in 2022. That organization, the Amazon Labor Union, is based out of a warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y.
Amazon has continued to question the results of the New York election. In separate motions filed in August 2023 and February 2024, Amazon asked the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to reopen the record so it could introduce additional evidence supporting its claims of misconduct surrounding the Staten Island election. Both requests were denied in an April order.
