Back in 2018, Amazon announced plans to open a fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, an old coal town of around 27,000 people about 20 miles southwest of Birmingham. When Amazon announced the $325 million fulfillment center, the company pledged it would create 1,500 jobs that paid $15 per hour and provided 401k retirement programs, health insurance, and tuition reimbursement. Bessemer’s mayor called it the “largest single private investment in the city’s 131-year history.”
Despite the fulfilled promise the new facility represents, labor relations between the company and the 6,000 employees soured quickly with a mail-in vote on unionization starting today. Essentially, employees living in a relatively impoverished community may seek to bite the hand that feeds them
Poor labor relations and the threat of unionization aside, the movement of large corporations into places like Bessemer, and the subsequent investment, is something government administrators, urban planners, and policymakers should not only praise but actively work to incentivize as a way to reinvigorate less affluent communities.
Read Full Article »