Amazon workers in Coventry lose union recognition ballot by handful of votes

TUC insists fight will go on after GMB fails to secure right to represent retailer’s staff by just 29 votes

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The TUC has insisted the battle for union recognition at Amazon will go on, after workers at the US retailer’s Coventry warehouse rejected the right to collective bargaining by a majority of just 29 votes.

In a historic ballot that could have forced Amazon to recognise a union for the first time in the UK, 50.5% of the workers who voted chose to refuse the proposal for the GMB union to represent them. If 15 had switched sides it would have gone the other way.