Top News  Shutterstock Nearly 6,000 employees at an Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) warehouse just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, called BHM1, began a vote this week to unionize their facility, marking the first such significant effort by Amazon workers in the U.S. The retail giant has been fighting hard against the endeavor with anti-union posters, a dedicated website launch and holding mandatory meetings during work hours, but a group of more than 70 investors has written a letter asking the company to stop interfering with the vote and remain neutral. They have cited worker rights to unionize, FT reports, as well as possible negative effects on Amazon's reputation among customers.
Do they have enough influence? The shareholders, including the comptrollers for the state of New York and New York City and BMO Global Asset Management, only hold a collective $20B in shares of Amazon, which itself has a market capitalization of $1.7T. However, many of them have a political presence that might be more far-reaching than the size of their investments. Besides a growing call that workers should have representation, issues surrounding Amazon like tax payments, government subsidies and antitrust concerns are becoming hot topics across the country. Amazon also has one of the quickest growing workforces in the U.S., hiring more than 500,000 people since the pandemic began a year ago.
Backdrop: Some of the motivations for the union go back to common criticisms of working conditions at the e-commerce behemoth, like how often employees have to carry out certain tasks and the length of breaks. Other complaints cover disciplinary actions, lack of communication and inexperienced managers. The reason why an attempt is being made in Alabama is due to the state's "right-to-work" law, which means a union only has to win over 50% backing of the returned vote to be unionized.
If the effort succeeds, it would give workers the power to negotiate a contract that could lock in heavy changes to wages and working conditions. Workers at BHM1 are able to cast mail-in ballots through March 29, though the motion could also inspire other Amazon warehouses to organize. In a statement, Amazon said it "respects our employees' right to join or not join a labor union, but we don't believe this group represents the majority of our employees' views. We encourage anyone to compare our overall pay, benefits, and workplace environment to any other company with similar jobs."
   | | Top News Shutterstock Nearly 6,000 employees at an Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) warehouse just outside of Birmingham, Alabama, called BHM1, began a vote this week to unionize their facility, marking the first such significant effort by Amazon workers in the U.S. The retail giant has been fighting hard against the endeavor with anti-union posters, a dedicated website launch and holding mandatory meetings during work hours, but a group of more than 70 investors has written a letter asking the company to stop interfering with the vote and remain neutral. They have cited worker rights to unionize, FT reports, as well as possible negative effects on Amazon's reputation among customers.
Do they have enough influence? The shareholders, including the comptrollers for the state of New York and New York City and BMO Global Asset Management, only hold a collective $20B in shares of Amazon, which itself has a market capitalization of $1.7T. However, many of them have a political presence that might be more far-reaching than the size of their investments. Besides a growing call that workers should have representation, issues surrounding Amazon like tax payments, government subsidies and antitrust concerns are becoming hot topics across the country. Amazon also has one of the quickest growing workforces in the U.S., hiring more than 500,000 people since the pandemic began a year ago.
Backdrop: Some of the motivations for the union go back to common criticisms of working conditions at the e-commerce behemoth, like how often employees have to carry out certain tasks and the length of breaks. Other complaints cover disciplinary actions, lack of communication and inexperienced managers. The reason why an attempt is being made in Alabama is due to the state's "right-to-work" law, which means a union only has to win over 50% backing of the returned vote to be unionized.
If the effort succeeds, it would give workers the power to negotiate a contract that could lock in heavy changes to wages and working conditions. Workers at BHM1 are able to cast mail-in ballots through March 29, though the motion could also inspire other Amazon warehouses to organize. In a statement, Amazon said it "respects our employees' right to join or not join a labor union, but we don't believe this group represents the majority of our employees' views. We encourage anyone to compare our overall pay, benefits, and workplace environment to any other company with similar jobs."
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| Tech Some choppy trading ensued following Twitter's (TWTR) Q4 results on Tuesday, though shares closed at $61.92, up 3.5% in after-hours trading. Revenues rose nearly 28% to a record $1.29B in the fourth quarter, with "better than expected performance across all major products and geographies," said CFO Ned Segal. Net income jumped to $222M from a year-ago income of $119M, while total ad revenue was up 31% year over year.
Fine print: Monetizable user growth (a.k.a the eyeballs that see ads on Twitter) slowed for a second straight quarter, a statistic Twitter blamed on policy enforcement changes introduced before the U.S. presidential election. It further projected low-double digit growth throughout the rest of 2021, down from recent figures that saw users spend more time online due to the pandemic.
Twitter also noted that despite "the unusual circumstances" in Q1 (suspension of President Trump?), the increase in "average absolute mDAU" through the end of January was above the average of the last four years. "We are a platform that is obviously much larger than any one topic or any one account," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey declared on an earnings call, adding that 80% of its audience is outside the U.S. Twitter expects to see mDAU growth of approximately 20% Y/Y in the first quarter. |
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