Organizers from Amazon.com Inc. and Starbucks Corp. will attend the White House on Thursday as part of the Biden administration's backing of the businesses' efforts to unionize their manpower.
As per the White House official, Vice President Kamala Harris and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh will meet Christian Smalls of the Amazon Labor Union, as well as leaders from unions mobilizing employees at Starbucks, outdoor store REI, and video game publishing company Paizo Inc.
According to the official, Harris, and Walsh will speak with union leaders concerning their attempts to establish their workplaces and how they can urge other employees to join or start their groups.
Many of those enterprises' employees have recently signed up coworkers and petitioned the government to hold elections on founding or entering unions that can negotiate with management for better working conditions in the last few years.
Smalls' upstart Amazon Labor Union won a historic election the previous month to lead Amazon laborers at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York. Amazon has challenged the outcome. The union was defeated in an election this week at a nearby, smaller Amazon operation.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a persistent critic of Amazon, has called for prohibiting federal contracts with corporations that have allegedly infringed labor rules in the United States and are conducting a hearing on the issue on Thursday.
In the first four months of this year, Amazon employees filed 51 unfair labor-practice concerns against the corporation, more than quadrupling the amount filed a year before.
The majority of the complaints were from Staten Island and Bessemer, Alabama, where a retailing union is also trying to organize an Amazon facility, saying that the firm unlawfully penalized campaigners or monitored them.
Employees in Florida, Nevada, and Amazon's home state of Washington have also complained.
Some of the charges have been judged to be true by federal labor board prosecutors, although Amazon has denied any wrongdoing.
President Joe Biden has described himself as the most pro-union president in American history, yet the White House has mainly avoided engaging directly in labor disputes.
Nonetheless, during an address to the North American Building Trades Union last month, Biden pointed a finger at Amazon.
"By the way, Amazon, we're coming," remarked the president. "Watch. Watch."
Biden was not "sending a message that he or the United States government will be personally participating in any of these endeavors or take any direct action," according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
