Local businesses pay workers more than Amazon near warehouse that is voting union

Amazon.com touts the $15.50 an hour base pay at its warehouse in Bessemer, AL, at $15.50 an hour. Critics say that those wages are not nearly enough. “If you go into certain rural areas in the South, where wages are suppressed and there’s no industry, that may seem attractive,” said Joshua Brewer of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. “For our folks here in Bessemer and Birmingham, it’s barely enough to keep the lights on.”