"Amazon.com Workers Begin Union Drive"

[Carl Remick]

[From TheStandard.com, Nov. 17]

Amazon.com Workers Begin Union Drive

The e-retailing giant may be part of the new economy, but it now faces an 
old-economy problem as employees complain about low wages and forced 
overtime.

By Miguel Helft

Customer service workers at Amazon.com's (AMZN) Seattle headquarters have 
started a drive to form a union.

The workers hope to gather support from a majority of the 400 or so customer 
service representatives in Seattle. They hope to obtain union recognition 
and eventually a collective bargaining agreement.

Assisting the Amazon workers in their efforts is the Washington Alliance of 
Technology Workers, or WashTech. That group, a Seattle affiliate of the 
Communication Workers of America, gained notoriety during the 1990s for 
leading – and winning – several labor fights against Microsoft (MSFT) .

With the holiday shopping season ramping up, the unionizing drive couldn't 
come at a worse time for Amazon. What's more, the drive also comes at a time 
when Amazon is under intense scrutiny. The company's prospects have been the 
subject of heated debate on Wall Street, its shares have taken a beating and 
its performance during this holiday season is seen as particularly critical.

[full text at 
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,20273,00.html]

Carl

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