Amazon last month announced plans to greatly expand its footprint in the Yellowhammer State with the addition of three new operations facilities and a new fulfillment center, creating more than 900 jobs.
The internet retail giant plans to create more than 500 full-time positions in Alabama prior to the year’s end, while also preparing for another 1,800 seasonal jobs.
Many view Alabama’s status as a right to work state as being a driving force behind the state’s recent surge of economic growth and job creation.
In a Wednesday morning press call with reporters, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) reacted to the recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to force workers at Amazon’s Bessemer facility to hold a revote on unionization.
Alabama’s junior senator asserted that the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) declined to come to terms with the fact that over 70% of election participants handed it a resounding defeat in its attempt to unionize their workplace.
“Well, we’re a right to work state. And if you noticed right after the vote where it was voted down, the people that are involved in Amazon there in Bessemer said ‘we do not want a union.’ The union started throwing arrows at whatever happened,” Tuberville told Yellowhammer News. “They did not want to accept the decision, and they’ve been looking at ways to get back to another vote. I’m sure that people there at Amazon feel great about the situation.”
He continued, “If you go back and look too, immediately after the vote, Amazon decided to add on to that facility, to add more jobs, more people in the workplace – and that’s what right to work states do. Thank goodness we’re right to work because we have all of our car manufacturing, we have Amazon, we have other places that have moved manufacturing to the state. I think that makes Alabama a very desirable state for new manufacturing.”
Tuberville suggested that a majority of Amazon’s Bessemer workforce preferred to keep earned wages to support their families as opposed to sending their money to “union bosses,” who typically involve their organizations with left-leaning political activities.
“The unions aren’t going to quit – they’re going to keep firing. They want to be able to collect money from all the employees where they can get involved in politics. The workers there, the non-union workers there at Amazon, understand that. They’re educated and they understand that they would rather take money and use for their families other than giving it to the union bosses and to the political entities that they support,” the senator concluded.
During the original election, a band of progressive politicians, celebrities, as well as Black Lives Matter lent their support to the New York-headquartered union over the effort. Bessemer could be poised to become the center of attention once again as a second election is forthcoming.
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
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