A union at Amazon? Why workers in Alabama hold the key.

This small Alabama city may not seem like the place for a labor revolution. 

The South, after all, has traditionally been more anti-union than other parts of the country. And a struggling economy could make residents of Bessemer eager for just about any kind of job they can get.

Recently ranked Alabama’s “worst city to live in” (and the sixth worst nationally), Bessemer is one of the country’s poorest cities. Less than 15 miles south of Birmingham, Bessemer’s downtown is a sea of cracked concrete, with derelict hotels and empty storefronts interspersed with used car and tire stores advertising “No Credit Needed.”

Yet after Amazon opened a warehouse here one year ago, with the promise of almost 6,000 jobs starting at $15.30 an hour, more than double Alabama’s minimum wage, what seemed like an answered prayer also soon became the venue of a nationally watched fight over unionization. 

Why here? Amazon has more than 100 other warehouses, most of them larger, both in square footage and employee size, and almost all of them have been in place longer than Bessemer’s BHM1 site. 

The answer, say locals, lies in the

“Granddaddy would say, ‘You need a union’”Steel boomtownWhat Amazon provides“We are a city of drastic change”