The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-01)

FRIDAY, APRIL 1 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A

BY RACHEL LERMAN

AND GERRIT DE VYNCK

Union elections at Amazon
warehouses in Alabama and New
York were too close to call as of
Thursday evening, keeping open
the potential for a historic turn-
around in efforts to unionize
workers at the e-commerce gi-
ant.
In Staten Island, N.Y., the inde-
pendent Amazon Labor Union
was leading by a few hundred
“yes” votes during the first day of
the count.
There are probably still hun-
dreds of ballots left to be counted
Friday.
In Bessemer, Ala., workers cast
993 “no” votes to the union’s 875
“yes” votes.
But before the counting start-
ed, both Amazon and the Retail,
Wholesale and Department
Store Union (RWDSU) were able
to challenge ballots they thought
might be problematic.
Those ballots — 416 — are
likely to determine the final tally.
But it could take weeks or
months to reach a final determi-
nation as both sides litigate
whether they should be includ-
ed.
Amazon did not immediately
respond to a request for com-
ment. Amazon founder Jeff Be-
zos owns The Washington Post.
“I feel like history’s already
been made, any way it goes,” said
Chris Smalls, interim president
of the Amazon Labor Union on
Staten Island.
If either warehouse votes yes,
it would result in the first suc-
cessful unionization effort at the
nation’s second-largest private
employer and generate major
momentum for the labor move-
ment there.
Labor experts say the tight
vote is indicative of the current

climate for workers, who are in

high demand thanks to low un-

employment amid rising infla-

tion.

“I’m certain we would not

have been here two years ago,”

John Logan, chair of the labor

and employment studies depart-

ment at San Francisco State Uni-

versity, said of the close votes. “I

think it shows that unions are

having a ‘moment’ and may even

mean that the labor landscape

has fundamentally changed after

two years of the pandemic.”

The vote in Bessemer, orga-

nized by the national RWDSU, is

a redo election after the first

attempt was overturned last year

when federal regulators ruled

that Amazon had improperly in-

terfered.

The union faced an uphill

battle in the region, where jobs at

Amazon are still among the best-

paying in the industry. But it

already had a more favorable

outcome for the union than last

year, when the vote count swung

more than 2-to-1 against unioniz-

ing.

“This is just the beginning and

we will continue to fight,” RWD-

SU President Stuart Appelbaum

said at a news conference after

the count. “Workers here have

done something historic.”

Turnout was lower than last

year, however. About 38 percent

of eligible workers cast a vote

this year, compared with a turn-

out of about 52 percent last year.

Appelbaum blamed the lower

turnout in part on high turnover

at Amazon warehouses, saying

many workers cannot endure the

conditions at the facilities.

The National Labor Relations

Board will hold a hearing to

discuss whether any of the chal-

lenged ballots should be opened.

Both the union and Amazon also

have the chance to file objections

to the election’s process in the

next several days, which could

affect the outcome.

The NLRB ordered a revote in

part because of Amazon’s efforts

to get a U.S. Postal Service mail-

box placed in front of the ware-

house, which the union objected

to, saying it could intimidate

workers who thought the compa-

ny might gain access to their

ballots. The agency wrote that

Amazon “essentially hijacked the

process and gave a strong im-

pression that it controlled the

process.”

Amazon worker Jennifer

Bates, one of the workers who

first called for the union’s help to

organize the Bessemer ware-

house in 2020, said Thursday

that she and others in Alabama

were “shouting for victory” for

fellow Amazon workers in New

York.

On Staten Island, workers

were organized by the independ-

ent Amazon Labor Union (ALU),

which was started by fired Ama-

zon worker Smalls. The upstart

union was faced with skepticism

from some labor observers but

touted its insider view of the

company — most of its organiz-

ers are current and former em-

ployees.

To file for the vote, the ALU

collected signatures from only

about 30 percent of the Amazon

workers, the required threshold

campaigns need to meet in many

cases.

But labor organizers typically

try to secure roughly 70 percent

or more, based on the assump-

tion they probably will lose votes

because of turnover and union-

suppression efforts.

So far, the union has received

1,518 yes votes for unionizing vs.

1,154 votes against it.

The Staten Island vote count

will continue Friday morning.

Amazon union votes too close to call

dent, reiterated his view that

Biden should leave the health

order in place. “Oh my goodness.

Just watch the news y’all put out

every day, what’s coming across,”

Manchin said, when asked why

he opposes lifting Title 42.

His comments, reported by

CNN, caused a rare public squab-

ble between two Democratic sen-

ators. Using social media, Me-

nendez called out his colleague:

“Let’s not adopt the ‘they are not

sending their best’ hate speech

from the right, Joe,” Menendez

tweeted.

On the Republican side, some

lawmakers used Biden’s decision

to highlight what they see as a

larger and more intractable im-

migration framework. But others

in the party did not hold back

from criticizing Biden.

“There will be a deluge at our

southern border!” said Rep. Chip

Roy (R-Tex.) in a House floor

speech this week.

The Biden administration’s

dependency on Title 42 deep-

ened as border crossings soared

during the spring of 2021. The

president initially described the

influx as a “seasonal” norm, but

by summer 2021 CBP was report-

ing more than 200,000 border

arrests per month.

The agency reported 1.73 mil-

lion arrests during the 2021 fiscal

year, the highest figure ever

recorded. The current fiscal year,

which began Oct. 1, is on pace to

eclipse that with the exact sce-

nario Biden said he wanted to

avoid, bringing “2 million peo-

ple” into CBP custody.

Immigrant advocates and

some Democrats called on Biden

to end the expulsions and restore

full asylum access, but instead

his administration opted to

make exemptions for vulnerable

groups: unaccompanied mi-

nors, individuals with medical

issues and later, most family

groups.

That produced an enforce-

ment regime at the border that

was neither the kind of aggres-

sive application of Title 42 wit-

nessed under Trump nor a return

to full asylum access, leaving

immigrant advocates angry at

Biden, but his border policies

approach far less restrictive than

his predecessor’s.

Emily Guskin contributed to this

report.

istration would keep “guard-

rails” in place to avoid having “

million people on our border.”

Title 42 remained the most

significant border policy hold-

over from Trump. On Thursday,

Democratic unity against

Trump’s policies gave way to

some infighting, creating an ad-

ditional challenge for Democrats

as they seek to show voters they

are a unified party.

“It’s an abomination that the

Biden administration did not lift

Title 42 a long time ago,” said

former Housing and Urban De-

velopment secretary Julián Cas-

tro. “They have been playing

craven politics with the lives of

desperate people and using pub-

lic health as an excuses for

political expediency.”

“Many of us applaud opening

our arms to Ukrainians who are

absolutely deserving,” Castro

said. “But so are Haitians. So are

many Central Americans.”

Sen. Joe Manchin III

(D-W.Va.), a centrist who is fre-

quently at odds with the presi-

migrants and the public from the

spread of the coronavirus inside

crowded border stations and de-

tention cells.

The order gave U.S. Customs

and Border Protection the ability

to summarily “expel” border

crossers to their home countries

or to Mexico, denying most asy-

lum seekers the right to apply for

humanitarian refuge in the Unit-

ed States. CBP has used Title 42

to carry out more than 1.7 million

expulsions over the past 24

months, records show.

The vast majority of those

quick deportations have oc-

curred under Biden, who ran for

president promising a repudia-

tion of President Donald Trump’s

enforcement approach at the

border.

After taking office, Biden halt-

ed construction of the border

wall, ended the “Remain in Mexi-

co” policy and sharply scaled

back deportations and arrests by

U.S. Immigration and Customs

Enforcement, among other mea-

sures. But he also said his admin-

aircraft to transfer migrants

away from the border. And they

have established a command

center at Department of Home-

land Security headquarters

staffed by interagency teams that

include Federal Emergency Man-

agement Administration offi-

cials who have handled major

disasters.

Still unclear, however, is how

the administration might struc-

ture a phased approach to end-

ing Title 42 that would lift the

restrictions on families first, and

single adults later. Single adults

are a far bigger challenge: rec-

ords show migrants arriving as

part of a family group accounted

for just 16 percent of those taken

into custody in February along

the southern border.

Either way, Biden faces an

uphill climb when it comes to

public opinion. A recent Econo-

mist-YouGov poll found that just

33 percent of respondents ap-

prove of Biden’s handling of

immigration. The only area

where the president had a lower

rating was on guns, where just 27

percent approved.

Even voters in areas far from

the border are attuned to immi-

gration. In Wisconsin, which

could have one of the most

competitive Senate races in the

country, 36 percent of voters said

they were “very concerned” over

illegal immigration, according to

a February Marquette Law

School poll.

The Title 42 order has been in

place since March 2020, when

the Trump administration said

emergency restrictions were

needed to protect U.S. agents,

Title 42 in its entirety, but rather

start doing so in phases.”

The plan the White House is

expected to adopt would not

fully lift Title 42 until late May,

which critics point out is roughly

tantamount to another 60-day

renewal. By setting the date in

late May, the administration

would have time to reassess its

plans if a new coronavirus vari-

ant becomes a greater threat to

public health.

Menendez said that the May

deadline provides potential mi-

grants with a target date to arrive

and might incentivize even more

people to come here, known to

immigration policy wonks as a

“pull factor”: “For an Adminis-

tration afraid of creating ‘pull

factors’, I fear their delay may

create the biggest pull factor of

them all,” Menendez said.

He discussed the issue briefly

in a call Wednesday with Steve

Ricchetti, one of Biden’s top

aides, according to a person

familiar with the conversation

who spoke on the condition of

anonymity because they were

not authorized to discuss it. The

call was focused on Menendez’s

desire to get some time with the

president to discuss a long-

stalled effort to revamp the coun-

try’s immigration system, the

person said.

Biden officials are making

worst-case contingency plans for

daily border arrests to more than

double from the current volume

of more than 7,000 daily appre-

hensions. They are hiring con-

tractors to add tent facilities that

can help process migrants faster,

along with additional buses and

people trying to cross the south-
ern border, where arrests by U.S.
Customs and Border Protection
have soared to an all-time high.
The decision, which is expect-
ed to be announced by the Cen-
ters for Disease Control and
Prevention this week, puts Biden
in a familiar political bind on an
issue he has long struggled to
navigate. Liberals are dissatis-
fied because they called for an
end to use of the order, known as
Title 42, months ago, while vul-
nerable centrist Democrats fret
that he will further expose the
party to attacks from Republi-
cans who say he has not effective-
ly controlled the border.
“There are just some issues in
which there’s just no easy policy
or political way to resolve them.
This is one of those,” said Doug
Sosnik, who was a policy and
political adviser to President Bill
Clinton.
Some Democrats gearing up
for competitive races are already
distancing themselves from the
administration’s plans. The ten-
sion was evident in the response
from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.),
who sent a letter to Biden urging
him not to lift the order without
a more robust blueprint in
place for dealing with the after-
math.
“There is still not an adequate
plan or sufficient coordination to
end Title 42,” Kelly said in a
statement after a conversation
with Homeland Security Secre-
tary Alejandro Mayorkas and
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
In a preview of the midterm
attacks Republicans plan to in-
tensify this fall, Senate Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
attacked Biden over the border
in a speech on the Senate floor.
“Throwing the floodgates open
for an historic spring and sum-
mer of illegal immigration would
be an unforced error of historic
proportions,” said McConnell,
who also brought up inflation
and Biden’s withdrawal from Af-
ghanistan.
White House communications
director Kate Bedingfield dis-
tanced Biden from the decision
to stop enforcing Title 42, saying
“this is a decision that the CDC
will make.” But she added, “We
are preparing for contingencies.
And so what I would say is, you
know, our goal is going to be to
process migrants in a safe and
orderly manner.”
Senate Foreign Relations
Committee Chairman Robert
Menendez (D-N.J.) offered a
mixed response to a draft plan to
wind down the directive that had
circulated earlier this week, ap-
plauding the end of Title 42 but
urging swifter movement.
“This is simply unacceptable
given they have had more than a
year to prepare,” Menendez said
in a statement to The Washing-
ton Post. “They should not wait
nearly two months before ending

BORDER FROM A

Expected end to migrant edict splits Democrats, girds GOP ahead of midterms

SALWAN GEORGES/THE WASHINGTON POST

Migrant families from Central America walk alongside the border wall between the United States and Mexico in January.

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