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A district office of the National Labor Relations Board on Monday ordered a new union election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama and approved the union challenge, in a vote the company definitively won.

NS decision widely expected after a trial clerk suggested trashing the results and holding a new election in august.

After the August decision, the company said it plans to appeal to the labor board in Washington if it doesn’t win at the regional level, but didn’t say on Monday whether that would continue.

roughly half Of the approximately 6,000 eligible workers at the warehouse in Bessemer, Ala voted by mail in February and March to join the Association of Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores. The scoreboard against the unionization proposal was two to one.

The union filed a formal objection to the election shortly after the results announced In April, he alleged that Amazon, among other complaints, was undermining conditions for a fair election by pressing the Postal Service to place a collection box in the warehouse. The union said the box, which was not authorized by the labor board, created the impression that Amazon was tracking which workers voted.

In his ruling on Monday, the labor board’s district manager for the Atlanta area wrote that Amazon “made the strong impression that it was in control of the process” by arranging the installation of the box. “This dangerous and inappropriate message to employees undermines trust in the board’s processes and the credibility of election results,” said executive director Lisa Y. Henderson.

Ms. Henderson also found that Amazon inappropriately “polls” employees—that is, tries to determine how to vote—by informing workers that they can receive “no vote” items, such as precisely arranged pins, at mandatory meetings. opinions of human resources officials.

Union president Stuart Appelbaum said Monday that the decision showed “Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union.”

Amazon said the box was designed to make it easier for employees to vote and that workers did not have access to ballots deposited in it.

“Our employees always had the choice of whether or not to join a union, and they overwhelmingly chose not to join RWDSU earlier this year,” Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “It is disappointing that the NLRB has now decided that these votes should not be counted. As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees.”

The regional office’s decision is a setback for Amazon at a time when its labor model is collapsing. under increasing scrutiny. California in September approved a law this would require warehouse employers such as Amazon to disclose productivity quotas they impose on workers and prohibit quotas that prevent workers from taking breaks and complying with health and safety rules.

Earlier this month, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters with around 1.4 million members elected a new president rushed in part on the promise of an aggressive campaign to unionize the company.

Bessemer campaign it was controversial It is the most serious challenge yet of a union at a local facility owned by Amazon, which currently has no unionized warehouses in the United States. Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island seemed appropriate for a union election in October, but later withdrawn voting requests.

The retail workers union has objected to the way the Bessemer election was run, arguing that Amazon consultants and executives are taking workers out of mandatory anti-union meetings when they ask skeptical questions, and providing workers with benefits if they lose their wages or become unionized, or even jobs.

The Labor board hearing officer’s recommendation in August dismissed most of the union’s objections to this effect, but the officer found that “the employer’s unilateral decision to, for all intents and purposes, create an on-site collection box for NLRB ballots destroyed the lab. Conditions that must apply in the election of a union”.

The trial clerk noted that the collection box was surrounded by a tent, with Amazon printing a campaign message on it (“speak for yourself”) and instructing workers to “post your ballot here”, and that the tent was visible. Image of Amazon’s security cameras.

District manager Ms Henderson echoed these results and said Amazon had essentially violated the pre-election decision by refusing to provide equipment, such as certain types of boxes, to help ensure the safe collection of votes during a manual election.

“I did not specifically endorse the employer’s proposals to make voting ‘easy’, as the employer was neither responsible for holding the elections nor mandated or authorized to assist the process,” Ms Henderson said.

He added: “The employer ignored the spirit of my directive by unilaterally requesting that a mailbox be installed.”