During the pandemic there has been many companies that have benefited from the government’s decision to tell people to stay at home, but one of the big winners has been Amazon. The company has a number of revenue centers but when most people think about Amazon the order and deliver service comes to the forefront. The company is involved in cloud computing with AWS; Amazon Prime, and a host of other services.

In the order and deliver service Amazon has increased the number of fulfilment centres across the world and has hired more than 500,000 people. Amazon is now the second largest private sector employer in the United States, after Walmart.

With as many people as Amazon has, some people are bound not to happy at work, at one of the retail unions has been organizing at Amazon. The RWDSU (Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union) has a test site at Bessemer, Alabama located in central Alabama outside Birmingham. Given this is a test case, generally Amazon has not wanted a union, but is not likely as anti-union as Walmart. (Walmart shut down stores which unionized).

In an article by Mike Spector and Jeffrey Dastin of Reuters, the former head of the National Labor Relationships Board, Wilma Liebman said if the union win, this is groundbreaking because forming unions particularly in the south has been discouraged by companies and the government.

The President of RWDSU Stuart Appelbaum said the campaign has been a victory is many ways. The vote will go one way or the other, but doors have been opened to more organizing around the country.

President Biden has asked for fair elections. Senator Bernie Sanders had rallies in Alabama.

Dave Clark, chief executive of Amazon’s consumer division has encouraged people to vote against the union.

The workers voted and said no to the union.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, some companies are unionized, some are not, it is a matter of the company and its attitude toward people. Most electrical utilities are unionized, many companies in the financial sector are not unionized which means if you favor one side or the other there are choices for you. The wonderful thing in an economy the size of the US means there are many alternatives, having your values reflecting your investing is a relatively easy thing to do.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.