Did Amazon Violate Wisconsin Voter Law?

State Rep. Angelina Cruz speaks outside Amazon facility in Kenosha. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

This past summer, Amazon reportedly instituted a policy making it harder for employees to vote in direct violation of state law.

Wisconsin state Reps. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) and Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) recently began raising concerns that Amazon had implemented a policy restricting voting access for workers across Wisconsin.

In August, an Amazon employee reached out to Rep. Cruz, saying Amazon had instituted an employee voting policy in violation of state law guaranteeing time off work to vote. State law says employees are entitled to three hours of leave from work while polls are open to vote. Amazon’s new policy counted an employee’s personal time off work toward the time off from work required by law, effectively reducing the amount of excused leave available to vote.

In the case of Cruz’s constituent, the worker was scheduled to work until 5:30 p.m. the day of the election. With polls closing at 8 p.m., Amazon offered them 30 minutes off work at the end of the day. The reported policy offered no consideration for an employee’s commute time and family or child care obligations that can make it difficult to get to their polling place in time after work.

“When I first heard about it, I didn’t believe that it could possibly be true,” Cruz told Urban Milwaukee Thursday. “This is just another instance of big tech billionaires inserting themselves into our democracy in order to protect their privilege and power…Amazon is stealing your wages, and now they’re trying to steal your votes.”

On Aug. 24, state Rep. Angelina Cruz (D-Racine) sent a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) detailing a complaint her office received from a constituent. The constituent, an Amazon employee, said they were informed on the day of the August partisan primary that the company was “no longer giving us the three hours of excused time on Election Day that the law requires them to give upon request,” according to Cruz’s letter to the WEC.

On Sept. 9, WEC promulgated an advisory opinion finding such a policy in conflict with state law. “Simply ensuring that an employee has three hours between when they get off work and the polls close at 8:00 p.m. to vote is inconsistent with [state law],” according to the WEC advisory opinion.

Amazon wanted to count an employee’s personal time off work toward the three hours of excused time required by state law, according to Cruz’s constituent, who is not identified in the letter out of fear of retaliation. The policy, as described by the worker, was found to be in violation of state law, according to a Sept. 9 WEC advisory opinion.

When Rep. McGuire reached out to Amazon representatives regarding the policy, they initially told him they believed Amazon was in compliance with state law, he told Urban Milwaukee.

“But I think that this advisory opinion kind of indicates that they they probably aren’t,” he said. “Somebody in the past wrote that law for a reason, and I am assuming the reason is that we know that working people have challenges in their daily lives, and that we want to make it possible for people to be able to go vote.”

Amazon spokesperson Montana MacLachlan told Urban Milwaukee on Thursday, “We encourage all employees who are eligible to vote to do so, and we offer a variety of time off and scheduling options to make it as easy as possible. We comply with all applicable laws in the places where we operate, which is why employees who vote in Wisconsin may take up to three consecutive hours off from work to vote while polls are open on Election Day.”

As of publication, Amazon has not identified when the three-hour policy was implemented, nor whether the company will notify workers of their right to three hours of leave to vote on Tuesday.

Democrats, Unions Rally Monday Outside Amazon Facility

With Amazon on its heels and reportedly walking back the unlawful voting policy, Cruz, McGuire and union leaders from the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Union (MASH) and Teamsters Local 344 held a news conference outside an Amazon fulfillment facility in McGuire’s district in Kenosha. Joined by Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan and congressional candidate Mitchell Berman, the coalition called on Amazon to make sure workers know they can take time off on Tuesday to vote in the midterm election.

“This is a multi-billion-dollar company, a donor to the presidential inauguration and the White House ballroom cutting into the voting time of the workers who fill its warehouses. The powerful get access, and workers get restricted by the clock,” Cruz said. “So we called on Amazon to rescind the policy, and thanks to the courage of that worker, our collective action, and the commission’s clear guidance, Amazon responded. The right to up to three hours off to vote has been restored.”

McGuire used the press conference to encourage voters to support candidates pushing back against the power of big tech and corporations.

“And let’s make no mistake: elections are about power. It’s about who has power, how they use power, and who benefits,” McGuire said. “When Amazon makes it harder for workers to vote, they are exercising the power that they have to prevent working people from having more economic and political power in this country.”

Since learning of the voting policy, Pocan said he has been in conversation with Amazon’s federal lobbyist and local Amazon officials, “to make sure that they have now agreed to send a text message to every single employee in Wisconsin to let them know that they do have the right to have three hours off tomorrow, and to provide additional information within the facilities to get this done.”

Crowley, who has enjoyed union backing since he launched his primary campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor, called the voting policy “wrong, plain and simple. But now, Amazon needs to inform their workers that they have the ability to go vote during their shifts tomorrow.”

Striking Amazon workers from Chicago, represented by the Teamsters, traveled to the facility Monday morning to show solidarity with the Kenosha workers. Amazon workers in Chicago organized four years ago, and Amazon has still refused to finalize a contract, said Teamsters Local 34 President Kevin Schwerdtfeger.

“The news of Amazon flagrantly ignoring the law is not a shocker for us in the Teamsters,” Schwerdtfeger said.

Had the Amazon employees in Kenosha been organized, they would have had a contract guaranteeing their rights in the workplace, Rickman said.

“Billionaire oligarchs like Jeff Bezos have been trying to rig our democracy so they can keep on rigging a system that exploits and extracts from working people,” said Peter Rickman, president of MASH. “And they’re right to be concerned that we might just elect a government in Madison or in Washington D.C. that’s going to stand up to big tech and concentrated corporate power.”