The employees at Amazon's warehouse in Alabama rejected unionization on Thursday.
There were 955 votes in favor of the union and 953 against it. More than 6,000 workers at the warehouse were eligible to vote on joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
The RWDSU and Amazon are challenging some ballots. 59 of the ballots were voided. The National Labor Relations Board needs to certify the election result.
The number of challenged ballots is greater than the union's deficit, which means that Amazon could still lose its lead. The National Labor Relations Board will hold a hearing in the coming weeks to decide if the challenged ballots will be opened and counted.
Amazon was found to have interfered in the vote and the NLRB ordered another election. In the election held last spring, employees overwhelmingly rejected unionization by a 2-to-1 margin.
The preliminary results are very close.
The election results are likely to be challenged by the RWDSU. The company used captive audience meetings during the do-over election, and it has already filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board. In the lead up to the election, employees were required to sit through weekly meetings with anti-union presentations from Amazon.
The second time, organizers used different strategies to get employees to support the union. They went to knock on doors because of the available coronaviruses. Employees have spoken out more in mandatory meetings to challenge Amazon's messaging, according to a worker who organized during both campaigns.
A large group of employees dived in to help with education.
According to an analysis of NLRB data, nearly half of all recent re-run elections have fallen short.
There is a vote count at an Amazon warehouse in New York. The early results show that the pro-union side is in the lead.
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