‘Amazon may have seen off GMB but it can’t afford to be viewed as Dickensian’

Every time I’ve turned on the TV lately there seem to have been as many Amazon adverts as programmes.

The ads have not been about the retailer’s Prime Day promotional extravaganza but about its wider appeal as an employer.

They focus on the online giant’s Career Choice programme through which eligible employees can get up to £8,000 of tuition and other costs covered to “learn new skills for career success at Amazon or elsewhere”.

“Amazon was within its rights to make its case, just as the union was, and staff appear to have accepted its arguments by a whisker”

Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the ads have run so frequently in the lead-up to this week’s landmark vote by Amazon’s Coventry warehouse staff on union recognition.

Victory for GMB, which has been agitating for recognition, would have meant Amazon would have been forced to recognise a trade union for the first time in the UK. It would also have brought changes such as the need to negotiate with GMB on matters like pay and conditions.

Amazon swung the vote by a hair’s breadth. While 49.5% of those balloted voted in favour of recognition, 50.5% voted against – denying the union the majority needed for change.

The narrowness of the vote shows that Amazon, £8,000 new skills grant or not, still has more to do to convince many of its existing staff – and therefore potentially new employees too – that it’s a top-notch employer when it comes to staff happiness and workplace rights.

Warehouse wars

However, the fact that Amazon, which had encouraged staff to vote against recognition, came out on top is a testament that, whisper it, maybe Amazon is not such a bad employer as has been made out.

GMB has reacted predictably to its defeat. It complained that there had been “anti-union messages” and “anti-union seminars” in Coventry. Well, incendiary language aside, that’s hardly a surprise.

Amazon, with its US origins, is no fan of unions. That’s entirely up to it. The retailer was within its rights to make its case, just as the union was, and staff appear to have accepted its arguments by a whisker.

Warehouses and logistics, unlike stores, have traditionally been strongholds of industrial activism.

The people who work there, rightly recognised as essential worker frontline heroes in the dark days of the pandemic, deserve to be treated fairly and with respect and to be paid accordingly.

Labour landslide

Amazon has more to do, obviously. But the truth is that few, if any, employers will get away with treating workers poorly these days.

Employment is still high and all retailers are competing with each other and other industries to attract and keep good staff.

It’s not as if employees don’t have other options if they feel an employer is a thankless Gradgrind, as in Dickens’ Hard Times, who “with a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket [is] ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature and tell you exactly what it comes to”.

If that’s how Amazon comes across – and maybe the scales and tables do sound like its algorithm-ruled world – it can’t afford to sit on its laurels following the vote.

“The best retail employers are unlikely to have much to fear as long as they look after staff and don’t come across as a Dickensian workhouse”

But it has some good stories to tell. Amazon last year announced a £170m investment in starting minimum pay, which rose in April to between £12.30 and £13 an hour – equating to at least an extra £1 an hour for UK operations staff. That doesn’t compare badly with other retailers.

As its skills funding shows, it is providing opportunities for people to move ahead in their careers – an option that explicitly flags the usefulness of the scheme should people want to move to other employers to progress. That doesn’t sound like a company that keeps people down.

The Amazon warehouse ballot won’t end efforts for union recognition, which are affecting other retailers too – notably Asda, where GMB has orchestrated store strikes.

Labour’s election landslide may lead to greater employee rights. The best retail employers, however, are unlikely to have much to fear as long as they look after staff and don’t come across as a Dickensian workhouse.