An effort to form the United Kingdom's first Amazon warehouse union has been defeated, after workers narrowly voted it down by a 28-ballot margin.

Roughly 2,600 workers at Amazon's Coventry warehouse participated in the union recognition ballot, The New York Times reports. Of those, 49.5% voted in favor of unionizing, ending a two-year-long fight where employees held a series of strikes in a push for higher pay. Over that period, Coventry workers also joined U.K. general trade union GMB, which gave employees individual representation but not the ability to collectively bargain. 

In order to force Amazon to bargain with them, Coventry workers needed a majority of their union members to vote in favor of recognition. In the lead-up to that vote, GMB alleged that Amazon pressured employees to attend seminars where it was implied that unionization would affect their pay, overtime, and benefits. GMB also accused Amazon of putting up QR codes that allowed workers to easily cancel their union membership. 

Amazon has faced allegations of illegal union busting for years now. According to CNBC, workers looking to organize at an Alabama warehouse in 2021 claimed that the company held mandatory meetings to discourage unionizing, and installed a mailbox on the company's site, raising fears among workers that Amazon would be able to surveil their individual votes. Similar accusations were levied during a union push in Moreno Valley, California in 2022, where The Guardian reported that employees were routinely interrogated by managers about their support for organizing. 

Employee's at Amazon's Coventry warehouse will have to wait three years to hold another recognition vote. Amazon's Staten Island warehouse is currently the only one where workers have won a union ballot.