Amazon and a young union of workers at the Staten Island warehouse agreed on terms for an election in late March, paving the way for two major elections simultaneously in Amazon’s warehouses.
The election at the Staten Island warehouse will be held in person from March 25-30, according to Christian Smalls, a former Amazon employee at Staten Island who heads the organization there. he too tweeted a screenshot of a text message Amazon sent to the facility on Wednesday with the same dates. The message also urged workers to “vote NO”.
The timing of the vote coincides with an election at Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., outside of Birmingham.
Mailed ballots for that election — a reinstatement after the National Labor Relations Board threw out an earlier ballot over what it believes was Amazon’s undue interference — have already gone out to workers and are due back by March 25. The job center has said it will begin counting those ballots on March 28, a process that could take several days.
The agency found in late January that the new Staten Island union, called the Amazon Labor Union, had collected enough signatures to show that there was sufficient interest in holding elections. Amazon and the union reached an agreement on the logistics of the vote just before a hearing was set to begin Wednesday morning.
The agency confirmed that a preliminary settlement had been reached, but did not provide details.
“It’s up to the workers now,” Mr. Smalls said. “We have the momentum. I’ve seen a very positive shift since we signed up, and we just hope we can keep that up.”
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the company remained skeptical that there were enough “legitimate signatures” to support the election petition. She added that after the agency determined that the elections could go ahead, “we want our employees to make their voices heard as soon as possible.”
“Our employees have always had the choice of joining or not joining a union,” she added, “and our focus remains on working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work.”
