American workers are like moths to Amazon's flame

Not like in Europe

Not an Amazon job – for all sorts of reasons. Photo by Arron Choi on Unsplash

Amazon.com Inc. workers are unionised in Europe. But in the United States, Amazon employees are not, and the status quo seems unlikely to change in a hurry. Just days ago, Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted overwhelmingly against unionising. This has significant implications for America, for its workers and for the sort of work that Amazon symbolises.

Let’s break it all down.

Amazon is second only to Walmart among American companies, in terms of workforce size. Had Amazon’s employees in Bessemer voted to form a union, it’s likely to have been the start of a bigger movement to restore the sense that workers can — and must — fight for fairness and safety. Amazon’s first union in America might have been, in a sense, the equivalent of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York 110 years ago. That’s in the sense of being a trigger for worker activism. The Triangle fire, in Manhattan, caused the deaths …