I spent months with Amazon workers in Coventry before they narrowly voted against unionising. This is what I learned

The recent ballot of GMB members at Amazon’s Coventry site gives useful insights into how to stand up to large employers.

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

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

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

The surge in union membership at Coventry began in August 2022, following unofficial “wildcat” protests and walkouts at many Amazon UK sites. This was in response to a long-awaited pay rise, which in the end amounted to only 50p per hour.

Union leaders among the workers told me they were horrified that Amazon was not doing more to support staff with the cost of living and the aftermath of the hardships they endured as “essential workers” early in the COVID pandemic. They also described a highly controlling work regime, in which workers were sometimes disciplined as a result of health problems and frequently could face poor treatment by managers.

These conditions have been widely documented and created an underlying base of resentment which was ignited by the lower than expected pay rise.

Since 2022, and following repeated strikes, workers have won an overall pay rise of 17% for the lowest-paid workers, and further improvements in pay for night shift workers. But they say this still falls short of meeting their basic needs.

Amazon warehouses create challenging conditions in which to organise, 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 shifting, with workers reporting waves of recruitment, including 1,300 employed in the summer of 2023, meaning that the union must constantly reach out to new groups of workers. It also means that many of those voting in the ballot had limited experience of work at Amazon. Despite the defeat, such a close result is significant and offers important lessons for the future of trade unionism.

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

When considering how to effectively support workers at Amazon, GMB officers often refer to trade unionist and author Jane McAlevey who died just before the Coventry ballot began and whose work as an organiser and academic in the US have received international recognition.

Their successes at Amazon confirm many of McAlevey’s central arguments – the importance of trusting workers, the need to identify “organic leaders” who are respected by colleagues and the importance of trade unions for democracy.

Within this perspective, the development of leadership and an active membership is more important than formal recognition. Now, after the ballot, there are ideas that can be drawn from McAlevey’s work, about how union representatives drawn from among the workforce might 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 workplace exploitation.

Vulnerable workforce

The outcome of the ballot also demonstrates the impact of border controls in making workers vulnerable to exploitation. Many Amazon workers at Coventry are from a migrant or refugee background and have family who rely on the money they send home. So when Amazon managers allegedly tell workers that union recognition would prevent a pay rise, this can have serious implications.

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

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

Formal recognition would have forced Amazon to negotiate over pay and other issues. It also would have allowed workers to elect health and safety reps. Under UK regulations however, the GMB, although considering a challenge, is now prevented from making another application for recognition at Amazon’s Coventry site for the next three years.

The union has listened to workers and supported the development of leaders among the workforce. This will no doubt continue. In the hours after the ballot result, one leader shared with me a message she had circulated to fellow Amazon workers.

Let this be a moment to regroup and strengthen our resolve. Your bravery in standing up for your rights remains crucial, and it is essential to maintain this momentum.

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

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

Tom Vickers is on part-time secondment from Nottingham Trent University to the GMB between January and July 2024, funded by NTU. His research has received funding from a wide range of sources, including the ESRC, British Academy, Hope Projects (West Midlands) Ltd, Nottinghamshire County Council, and Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum.