Creating a first union: a vote that can change Amazon's history

Seen from Europe, it seems like a struggle from another century.

For months, a battle between Amazon employees and management to create a union.

It is a symbolic battle, followed by all the press and television channels.

There is even in this arm wrestling a scent of struggle for civil rights reminiscent of the 1960s. To locate the strength of the symbol, it should be noted that Amazon employs more than 800,000 people in the United States, it is the second largest employer in the country after WalMart, but not a single one of these workers is unionized.

However in February, for the first time, employees of a warehouse of the giant of the e-commerce in Alabama obtained to organize a vote for or against the creation of a union.

It's David versus Goliath.

The vote ended on Monday evening, we are awaiting the results in a few days.

This vote can change history because Amazon has always been very firmly opposed to the creation of unions in the United States, for reasons of principle, more than the cost of labor.

Amazon pays its employees rather better than the average, it provides them with decent health insurance and in return it wants to keep a great flexibility in the organization of work: this is what is played in this showdown that all American business look because all sectors are concerned.

So far, Amazon has always won.

With each attempt to create a union, Jeff Bezos' group has mobilized considerable resources by calling on "union busters", anti-union consultants who use the techniques of political campaigns, advertising, video, social networks etc.

to dissuade employees from unionizing, often successfully.

It must be said that employees are divided on the usefulness of unions.

Alabama, where a tug-of-war is playing out, is one of those southern states called "right-to-work states", where employees are not required to pay union dues.

In other states, it is the opposite and all employees are obliged to contribute.

It is for the maintenance of this dual system that Amazon and many other American companies are fighting.

So that within the world's largest economy, there are very liberal areas and others where social standards are stricter.

And basically, so that the two universes come face to face with this idea that if social standards are too strict, companies will leave, but if the conditions are too harsh for employees, the workforce will be lacking.

It is also this diversity of situations which makes the dynamism of the American economy.