Amazon workers refuse to create the company's first union in the US.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, on

Friday

refused to

create the first union of

Amazon

workers in the United States.

The scrutiny of the votes turned out this Friday very contrary to the interests of the trade unionists, with

the "no" exceeding the "yes" by more than double

.

Amazon is the second largest employer in the country, employing nearly a million people. 

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With more than half of the votes counted, there were 738 workers in favor of organizing unions, while those opposed to the proposal reached

1,798

, in a count that could be followed virtually by videoconference.

To win, both the "yes" and the "no" had to reach 1,608 votes, which

would mean exceeding 50% of the 3,215 ballots cast

.

At Bessemer there are almost 6,000 workers. 

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the retail trade union, took a somber tone in a statement Thursday night when initial results came in, indicating that

the union will engage in a legal fight

if the vote goes wrong.

"Our system is broken, Amazon took full advantage of that, and we will ask the labor board to hold Amazon accountable for its heinous and illegal behavior during the campaign," Appelbaum said in a gloomy statement Thursday night.

However, he did not specify any accusations.

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The scrutiny began this Thursday after the possibility of voting by mail between February and March and after almost two full weeks of discussions between the company and the union members about the validity of each vote.

The process was done manually and voting by closed-door suffrage.

During its development, according to union sources, Amazon rejected several hundred votes.

The count stopped at 6:00 pm (local time) and

resumed this Friday at 8:30 in the morning

.

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The firm headed by Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world according to Forbes, is outnumbered in the United States by the hypermarket chain Walmart.

Since the start of the pandemic,

Amazon has skyrocketed both its activity and its profits

and has hired tens of thousands of new workers.

However, the company does not have any workers' unions in the country and is known for its strong opposition to the organizing efforts of its employees, something that it has shown on several occasions throughout this campaign at the Bessemer warehouse. 

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"But make no mistake, this still represents an important moment for workers and their voices will be heard," he added.

Amazon, for its part, has not released any statements after the suspension of the vote this Thursday. 

For what it could be pioneering,

the vote is being very followed throughout the country

, and even the US president, Democrat Joe Biden, implicitly alluded to this case when he made, at the beginning of March, a fierce public defense of the unions and the right to organize. 

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According to labor experts, the first predictions about the result of the vote are not a surprise, given the

resources that Amazon has invested in countering the creation of a union

.

"It's very difficult for workers to win in a situation like this," Rebecca Givan, associate professor of management and labor relations at Rutgers University, New Jersey, told our sister network NBC News. 

"The most likely outcome in these situations is that the employer ends up with the union by instilling fear and uncertainty in the workers, and even the workers who were initially in favor of organizing in a union freak out and change their minds."

With information from Efe, NBC News and AP.