". . .(A)fter months of scrutiny and protest drawing attention to reports of Amazon warehouses at which ambulances were kept stationed outside to treat workers inevitably collapsing from the summer heat, Amazon announced it is spending $52 million to air-condition its warehouses. Workers in those warehouses will still be worked unreasonably hard for unreasonably little money with poor job security, but air-conditioning should substantially reduce one hazard.
One set of warehouse workers is trying to join a union, though, strengthened by the fact that they are actually employed by a retailer and not by temp agencies. The overwhelmingly Latino workforce at a New Jersey Bed Bath & Beyond distribution center is moving toward a union representation vote . . ."
Rightardia has pointed out that Amazon is a big ALEC supporter which is worrisome. Bed, Bath and Beyond is underpaying warehouse workers and only grants them three days of sick leave a year. Part of the reason that middle class wages haven't kept up with worker productivity, is the decline of the union movement in the US.
According to the Deprtment of Labor, 11.8 percent of americans are in unions. Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (37.0 percent) more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers which is 6.9 percent.
Corporations are scared of unions and hire legal teams that charge out at hundreds of dollars per hour to stop a union from organizing.
source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
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