Amazon’s Greatest Weapon Against Unions: Worker Turnover
The Seattle Times conducted its own analysis of Amazon’s workforce data last year, putting the company’s turnover at 111% during the pandemic. A New York Times investigation published this week put the figure even higher, at 150%, showing that Amazon was shedding 3% of its workers every week before the pandemic began.
A turnover rate above 100% doesn’t mean every single worker quits or gets fired in a year: It means the number of workers who leave is greater than the average number of workers employed during the same time period. So while some workers may last years, others last days. Under a turnover rate of 100%, every theoretical position inside the warehouse would turn over once in a year, on average.
That has huge implications for organizing.
Before the National Labor Relations Board schedules an election, a union must secure signed union authorization cards from at least 30% of the workers in an expected bargaining unit. In reality, a union wants far more than that ― ideally two-thirds or greater ― since they will need to win a majority of votes cast, and the employer may launch an anti-union campaign that weakens support.
At an Amazon warehouse, high turnover means a union would be losing cards every day as workers leave and new employees unfamiliar with the campaign replace them. Even if the union manages to win an election, high turnover could hurt its position at the bargaining table if some of the most active organizers have quit or been fired. And churn could even help the employer purge the union from the facility by convincing newer workers to decertify it….
On a more fundamental level, high turnover makes it harder to build solidarity. Those who come to see the warehouse as just a place to get a paycheck for a few months would feel less invested in the job, or a campaign to improve it. Workers who barely know one another would be less likely to trust each other or take risks together.
Gene Bruskin, a longtime labor organizer, said Amazon’s turnover also creates basic logistical hurdles as workers try to establish networks. Bruskin is in regular touch with Amazon workers who are trying to organize their warehouses.
“When you’re trying to build a committee and sort of track leadership, map the place out and figure out where your good connections are, you just can’t count on that,” Bruskin said. “The best you can do, knowing that you’re going to lose a lot of folks, is to try and create a culture of solidarity and activity … so that when somebody [new] comes in they sort of pick up the vibe. You just can’t be as dependent on a particular group of people.”…
Amazon openly encourages some of the turnover, offering employees annual buyouts to leave the company if they believe Amazon isn’t right for them. Under the pay-to-quit program, workers with a year under their belts are eligible for $2,000 or more to leave under the condition they can never return.
this is a good article, but there’s another one in harper’s with numerous anecdotes that speak to just what amazon has done to workers: Hard Bargain How Amazon turned a generation against labor
the article mentions that turnover is a big issue, but adds that this is compounded because most young people don’t have any experience with being in a union in the first place and don’t know what it is or does: