Amazon announces new Alabama warehouse after union defeat

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Amazon announced plans for a new warehouse that will bring more than 500 jobs to north Alabama just weeks after workers at another company facility in the state soundly defeated a push for unionization.

The company said the 1 million-square-foot (93,000-square-meter) order fulfillment center would be built near a new Mazda Toyota vehicle factory that’s being constructed west of Huntsville in Limestone County.

“Amazon employees will pick, pack, and ship bulky or larger-sized customer items such as patio furniture, outdoor equipment, or rugs,” Owen Torres, a company spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday.

Amazon already has warehouses near Mobile and in suburban Birmingham, where employees last month voted decisively against forming a union to cut off a drive that labor activists had hoped would lead to similar efforts throughout the company.

The union push at Bessemer, located just west of Birmingham, was the biggest in the 26-year history of the online seller and only the second time that an organizing move from within the company had come to a vote.