Partial tally in Amazon union drive favors ‘No’ votes.

With about half of the ballots counted late Thursday, anti-union votes had a more than 2-to-1 advantage over supporters, according to a live broadcast of the count counted by the New York Times. When the count paused, there were 1,100 votes against union formation and 463 in support.

The incomplete balance sheet led Amazon to defeat the most serious organized workforce threat in the company’s history. In a high profile campaign since the fall, the retail, wholesale and department store union wanted to create the first union in an Amazon warehouse in the US. The outcome will have a significant impact not only on Amazon but also on the organized workforce and its allies.

The union said that in the closely monitored elections, 3,215 ballots were cast by 55 percent of the 5,805 eligible voters in the camp. The union must have the support of more than half of the votes cast in order to prevail.

The ballots were counted in a random order at the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Birmingham, Alabama, and the process was broadcast through Zoom to more than 200 journalists, lawyers and other observers.

The vote was carried out by mail from the beginning of February until the end of last month. A handful of labor exchange workers on Thursday cried “yes” or “no” to the results of every vote for a union for nearly four hours on Thursday. The count is due to resume early Friday.

Amazon and the union had spent more than a week in closed meetings verifying the eligibility of any vote with the labor exchange, the federal agency that conducts union elections. The union said several hundred ballots had been largely challenged by Amazon, and those ballots were only intended for decision and counting if they were critical to determining an outcome. If Amazon’s large margin stays constant throughout the count, the controversial ballots are likely controversial.

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