Amazon has been ordered to allow workers to vote on whether to join a union — for a third day

Amazon workers at an Alabama warehouse should get a third chance to vote on whether to unionize, a federal labor judge has ruled.

The vote is not expected to take place anytime soon, as the legal process continues.

The warehouse in Bessemer made history as the site of the first union election held by Amazon workers in 2021. But the result was anything but historic: Workers voted against joining a union.

U.S. labor officials later ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the vote, and workers voted again in 2022. The outcome remained too close to predict for years, with hundreds of ballots challenged by Amazon or the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. As the two accused each other of violating labor laws.

For months, in a small courtroom in Birmingham, an administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board heard testimony about the 2022 election from workers, Amazon managers and officials from the agency itself.

Labor Board investigators painted a picture of an aggressive and illegal anti-union campaign by the company. The union requested that the vote be repeated again. The company challenged the way the government conducted the latest vote and maintained that workers “made their voices heard” when they rejected the union in the original election.

That original anti-union vote was overturned by federal labor officials because they ruled that Amazon improperly influenced the election, particularly by placing a mailbox for ballots in an Amazon-branded tent in the controlled parking lot.

Now Judge Michael Silverstein is ordering a third election, finding that Amazon illegally confiscated union materials from the break room, among other violations. But Silverstein also moved to dismiss several allegations of unfair labor practices by Amazon.

Amazon says it plans to appeal the ruling.

“This decision is wrong on both the facts and the law,” company spokeswoman Mary-Kate Paradis said in a statement. She criticized the works council and the union for “trying to force a third vote instead of accepting the facts and the will of our team members.”

The union is also challenging parts of the system, meaning there will be further legal reviews before new elections are held.

“We refuse [the judge’s] decision not to provide any of the important and meaningful remedies we have requested that would be required to conduct a free and fair election,” RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum He said in a statement. “There is no reason to expect a different result in a third election – unless there are additional solutions. Otherwise, Amazon will continue to repeat its past behavior and the Board will continue to order new elections.

Separately, Amazon continues to legally challenge a historic 2022 union victory at a facility in Staten Island, New York. This election marked Amazon’s first — and so far only — unionized warehouse in the country, but the company still refuses to begin negotiating with about 5,500 unionists. Workers.

The nascent union that has prevailed in New York — the Amazon Independent Workers Union — has seen financial and organizational decline during its two-year standoff with Amazon. In June, she voted to join the long-established international Muslim Brotherhood.

Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s recent financial supporters.

Stefan Beshaha of the Gulf Newsroom contributed to this report.