Amazon’s U.K. workers narrowly lose union vote
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
From the BBC World Service: Workers at an Amazon warehouse in the United Kingdom have failed to gain union recognition by the slimmest of margins. A majority of support was needed but just under 50% voted in favor. Then, in Bangladesh, thousands of students have been protesting over a lack of jobs. And in Spain, some are questioning the culture of working well into the evening.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A vote to get Amazon to recognize its first union in the UK has failed for now. |
| 0:06.3 | Hello, this is the Marketplace Morning Report and we're coming to you live from the BBC |
| 0:10.1 | World Service. I'm the Anna Byrne and a very good morning to you. Now this has just |
| 0:13.7 | happened in the last hour a British Union has narrowly lost a historic bid to get |
| 0:17.9 | recognition from Amazon. The BBC's Zoe Conway can tell us more and Zoe it was pretty close wasn't it? |
| 0:24.0 | Well the GMB are calling it agonizingly close a 49.5% vote in favour so you do the math's 50.5 percent against so incredibly |
| 0:37.4 | tight and this has been 18 months of organizing by the GMB, they have put a lot of resources into this vote. |
| 0:47.6 | They had three members of staff working full time and they've really concentrated a huge amount of their energy as a |
| 0:54.4 | trade union to try and get this over the line so they are incredibly |
| 0:59.1 | disappointed behind the scenes I'm sure that they came so close. |
| 1:03.5 | Amazon on the other hand of course I'm sure behind the scenes are feeling relieved. |
| 1:08.2 | They made no secret of the fact that they did not want trade union recognition because they say they pride themselves on having a good direct relationship with their employees. |
| 1:20.0 | What happens now is always it all over? The GMB has already got legal action in play against |
| 1:29.3 | Amazon. What the union is accusing them of is putting pressure on the workforce to leave the |
| 1:36.8 | trade union. |
| 1:37.9 | It should be said that it will be three years before they can try again. |
| 1:44.0 | Of course there's a question mark about whether they decide to organize at other |
| 1:48.6 | Amazon fulfillment centres. |
| 1:51.2 | Zoe Conway, thank you so much for joining us in Marketplace. |
| 1:54.0 | Thank you. |
| 1:55.0 | Let's go to Bangladesh now. |
| 1:57.0 | Tens of thousands of students there are protesting over a lack of jobs and the situation has turned violent. If I don't get a job after completing my studies, after six years of study, will the government |
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