Jennifer Bates

Jennifer Bates (born 1972 or 1973) is an American labor organizer known for her role in leading Amazon worker organization in Bessemer, Alabama.

Early life Bates was heavily involved in ministry and outreach work in her community, and was involved in her church in Marion, Alabama, where she grew up. She started working in an okra field owned by her cousin when she was 13. She says her first "legal job" was working at Hardee's when she was 16.

Before returning to Alabama in 2007, Bates married a man in the military and relocated temporarily to South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. in May 2020 working in stowing, eventually becoming a learning ambassador.

A few months into her tenure, Bates and Darryl Richardson, one of her coworkers, contacted Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and in November 2020, announced their intention to unionize the 5,800-employee location. The union drive earned national media attention, and the support of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, Representative Stacey Abrams, and President Joe Biden.

Bates criticized Jeff Bezos, saying that he did not care about the employees, and compared the benefits and wages Bezos advertised was akin to giving someone "a wheelbarrow and calling it a car", and workers further criticized Amazon's failure to disclose that similar nearby jobs through union contracts offer much better wages and benefits. Bates testified that she and many of her coworkers were living "paycheck to paycheck", which contrasted the increasing wealth gap amongst the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. She told congress that within three days of starting her new job she was in physical pain and that her sister, who also worked there, warned it was going to worsen,

The first election results ended in a decisive vote against unionizing after closing on March 29, 2021. 738 workers voted in support of a union, out of the roughly 2,500 ballots counted, a number staggeringly lower than the petitioned authorization cards reported to be over 3,000.

Critics have argued that without financial consequences, Amazon is unlikely to engage fairly with the second election. Bates feels the power dynamics in labor organizing are biased against workers, telling The Hill, "If the [NLRB] doesn't change the laws and put a harsher punishment on employers or CEOs of these companies, the bricks will always be stacked against us." The proposal was rejected.

Personal life Bates has three children and seven grandchildren.

NLRB campaign record