In today’s news and commentary, documents reveal the inner workings of Amazon’s union avoidance program, Washington state public sector unions reach tentative deals amid a difficult bargaining cycle, and hundreds of Nevada Culinary Union members protest their union’s health care changes.

First, an analysis of documents disclosed in a Canadian labor proceeding reveals the systematic and data-driven nature of Amazon’s union avoidance operation. The documents, which were produced in connection with an unfair labor practice complaint filed by Unifor, which is organizing Amazon workers in the Vancouver area, include manager training materials and an internal facility ranking system. Amazon trains managers to conduct scripted one-on-one conversations with workers, listening with “care and empathy” while steering them away from unionization, and to identify “informal leaders” with influence over coworkers. The trainings walk managers through the messaging they should deploy in the face of a union drive, emphasizing that “nothing a union promises is guaranteed”,  alongside illegal tactics to avoid. The documents also reveal Amazon’s internal “Atlas” tiering model, which ranks facilities by organizing risk using a “Labor Continuity Score,” with daily worker sentiment data fed into machine learning models to track worker sentiments. 

Next, Washington state’s two largest public sector unions reached tentative agreements on new two-year contracts this week, though the deals reflect a difficult fiscal environment. The Washington Federation of State Employees, representing roughly 42,000 general government workers, reached a deal just after midnight Friday, and terms are pending member ratification. The Washington Public Employees Association, representing about 2,500 workers across nine state agencies, struck a deal containing no across-the-board wage increase, though it created a mechanism to reopen wage talks during the contract period. “A zero percent wage increase means another loss in purchasing power, continuing a trend we’ve seen for the last two decades,” said association President Amanda Hacker. Both deals must be ratified by October 1 to be eligible for funding in the next state budget.

Finally, hundreds of members of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Las Vegas have been protesting outside their union’s headquarters since late August about changes to the union’s health care plan. The immediate trigger is a restructuring that now designates members’ existing external primary care providers as out-of-network, directing workers to one of four union-run health centers instead. Union leadership argues the centers offer superior, no-cost care, and that concerns are based on misinformation. But protesting members say they were not adequately consulted before the changes took effect, and some workers with chronic conditions fear being forced to leave long-standing providers. Workers are also concerned about an upcoming October wage increase, which must be drawn from a $1.55 hourly benefits pool that also covers health care and pension costs. Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge acknowledged that “a big chunk of the money that we won for this year is going to have to go to health care,” blaming rising costs and Medicaid cuts by the administration. Nevada’s Culinary Workers Union is one of the largest and politically influential unions in the state.