I spent months with Amazon workers in Coventry before they narrowly voted against unionisation. That’s what I learned

Amazon workers in Coventry have narrowly voted against a proposal that would have forced the retail giant to give official recognition to the GMB Union. With a high turnout of 86% of eligible voters, 50.5% voted against forcing recognition, a margin of just 28 votes.

The ballot follows an extraordinary process of unionizing the workforce at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry, with GMB membership growing from around 60 members in July 2022 to more than 1,400. Amazon has devoted significant resources to opposing unionization — including some tactics that are the subject of legal challenge.

I watched this process unfold from the GMB through a part-time research secondment from my university. Since January we have undertaken in-depth interviews with 11 Amazon worker leaders and four GMB organisers, observed nine picket lines and six mass strike meetings, as well as numerous other meetings and informal conversations with around 200 workers.

Union membership growth in Coventry began in August 2022 following unofficial protests and walkouts at many Amazon UK sites. This was in response to a long-awaited wage increase, which eventually amounted to only 50 lei per hour.

Union leaders among the workers told me they were appalled that Amazon hadn’t done more to support staff with the cost of living and the consequences of the hardships they endured as “essential workers” at the start of the COVID pandemic. They also described a highly controlling work regime where workers were sometimes disciplined as a result of health problems and could often face poor treatment from managers.

These conditions have been widely documented and have created an underlying base of resentment that has been fueled by lower-than-expected wage growth.

From 2022, and following repeated strikes, workers won a 17% across-the-board pay rise for the lowest paid workers and further pay improvements for night shift workers. But they say this still does not meet their basic needs.

Amazon’s warehouses create challenging conditions in which to organize, with a highly controlled work environment, workers living far from the site, multiple languages ​​being used, and financial pressures to work long hours.

The workforce is also constantly changing, with workers reporting waves of recruitment, including 1,300 hires in the summer of 2023, meaning the union must constantly reach out to new groups of workers. It also means that many of those who voted on the ballot had limited experience working at Amazon. Despite the defeat, such a close result is significant and offers important lessons for the future of trade unionism.

Although Amazon maintains that it is up to each employee to join a union, it is open about its opposition to collective bargaining and formal recognition. After the GMB sought formal recognition in March 2024, Amazon stepped up its campaign against the union, arguing that it would be better for staff to engage directly with it and anti-union messages delivered in workers’ native languages.

When thinking about how to effectively support Amazon workers, GMB officers often refer to trade unionist and author Jane McAlevey, who died just before the Coventry vote began and whose work as an organizer and teacher in the US received international recognition.

Their successes at Amazon confirm many of McAlevey’s central arguments—the importance of trust in workers, the need to identify “organic leaders” who are respected by peers, and the importance of unions to democracy.

In this perspective, the development of leadership and active membership is more important than formal recognition. Now, after the vote, there are ideas to be drawn from McAlevey’s work about how union representatives drawn from the workforce could still win over colleagues who voted against recognition.

As I have argued in my own work, there is an urgent need to build independent working-class institutions to challenge exploitation in the workplace.

Vulnerable workforce

The poll result also demonstrates the impact of border controls on workers being vulnerable to exploitation. Many Amazon workers in Coventry come from a migrant or refugee background and have families who rely on the money they send home. So when Amazon managers tell workers that union recognition would prevent a wage increase, it can have serious implications.

The wider precariousness workers face due to the cost of living, temporary contracts and, in some cases, the vulnerability created by their immigration status all need to be taken into account.

It seems that Amazon was able to play on this insecurity by presenting recognition as if it were a risky option. This demonstrates that these wider conditions of life outside the workplace should be a central concern for unions, and these are increasingly being taken up by the GMB.

Formal recognition would have forced Amazon to negotiate on pay and other issues. It would also have allowed workers to elect health and safety representatives. However, under UK regulations, GMB, while considering a challenge, is now barred from making another application for recognition on the Amazon Coventry site for the next three years.

The union listened to workers and supported the development of labor leaders. This will undoubtedly continue. In the hours after the election result, a leader shared with me a message he had passed along to colleagues at Amazon.

Let this be a moment to regroup and strengthen our resolve. Your courage to stand up for your rights remains essential and it is essential that you maintain this momentum.

She urged her colleagues to learn from the experience and use it to continue advocating for fair treatment and better working conditions where every worker’s voice is heard.

Amazon did not respond to The Conversation’s request for comment