Amazon could be on the brink of being forced to recognise a trade union for the first time
Amazon could be
on the brink of being forced to recognise a trade union for the first time in
the UK, after GMB made a formal bid to the Central Arbitration Committee
(CAC).
The CAC - the Government body responsible for regulating collective bargaining between workers and employers - can force companies to recognise a trade union if more than 50 per cent of the work force are members.
After over a year of industrial action, union membership at the company's Coventry site has grown significantly and GMB is confident of surpassing the legal threshold for recognition.
However, the union warns decision makers of Amazon’s track record of using union busting, dirty tricks to sidestep recognition - after an earlier recognition bid was met by the company flooding the fulfilment centre with 1,000 new workers in a week.
Union recognition would mean Amazon would be forced to sit down with GMB on matters relating to pay, worker safety, terms and conditions.
Amanda Gearing, GMB Senior Organiser, said:
“It’s been legal gymnastics from Amazon in their attempt to smash drives for union recognition.
“But instead of being beaten, Amazon workers in Coventry have recruited their colleagues into the union in record numbers.
“They’re calling time on Amazon’s tactics and demanding the company talk pay, worker safety and conditions with their union.
“The company could be on the brink of being forced to recognise GMB Union.
“Union recognition really matters, and it’s the clear ambition of workers at Amazon Coventry.
“It’s only right that an employer with thousands of members of a single trade union in a workplace to be asked to sit down and talk to that union.
“Amazon workers
are low paid workers facing often unsafe and insecure work; it’s time they were
extended the same rights to union protection as everyone else”.
