About 1,500 workers at an Amazon sorting center on Staten Island are eligible to vote this week in an election that could yield the company’s second union in the United States.
This month, an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island with more than 8,000 employees was the first location to vote for unionization, favoring the union by a margin of more than 10 percentage points, though Amazon is trying to nullify the result.
If the workers of the smaller facility, known as LDJ5, vote to join a union, they will join the Amazon Labor Union, the same independent worker-led union that managed the warehouse. The votes will be counted from Monday 2 May.
Amazon Labor Union treasurer Madeline Wesley said at a rally outside the facility on Sunday that a union was needed because part-time workers, whom the facility relies heavily on, could not get enough hours to support themselves.
The hours are “not based on what employees want or need,” says Ms. Wesley, who works at LDJ5. “It’s based on what Amazon has come up with to be most efficient at the expense of its employees.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on employees’ complaints about the schedule.
In an interview at the meeting, Ms Wesley said the union had expected it to be easier to organize LDJ5 after the warehouse win, but Amazon had been aggressive in convincing workers to vote no.
A milestone for Amazon unionization
Workers at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island have recorded one of the biggest organized labor victories in a generation.
Although the union’s prospects “looked bleak a few weeks ago, no one was giving up,” Ms Wesley said. “They persevered and kept talking to their colleagues. The atmosphere in the building has changed a lot. I think we had a good chance.”
But the union faces hurdles in the election, including the shorter amount of time it spends organizing workers in the sorting center and the fact that most of the group’s top executives and organizers work in the larger facility known as JFK8, giving them less direct access. to have. to employees at LDJ5.
Many unions also find it more difficult to organize workplaces with a large proportion of part-time workers, who can be less invested in organizing campaigns.
Workers who pull into the sorting center for a four-hour shift, often 30 to 60 minutes each way, are generally “a certain group of people who really struggle to make it,” says Gene Bruskin, a long-term worker. organizer who advised the Amazon Labor Union in the two Staten Island elections.
Mr Bruskin, who is known for overseeing a successful campaign at a huge meat processing plant in Smithfield in 2008, added: “When you have a workforce like that it’s really tough. You have a lot of people who might have more of the attitude, ‘It’s just a part-time gig, I’m not staying here.’ It’s a tough battle.”
Mr. Bruskin and other labor officials have worked to address these challenges by enlisting the help of organizers from other unions, who have helped make phone calls, schedule meetings with employees and talk to employees outside the facility.
Uriel Concepción, who works four hours a day at the factory, said in an interview on Sunday that a union would improve working conditions there. Mr Concepción said 16 hours a week wasn’t enough to pay the bills at home, where he lives with his parents, but Amazon had never honored his repeated requests for full-time work.
Eric Barrios, another employee at the facility, said in an interview that he was not sure whether he would support the union. Mr Barrios said he too worked 16 hours a week and had not been able to get more hours, but he was concerned that some of the union’s goals were unrealistic.
“Some of the things they say are far-fetched, such as a wage of $30 an hour,” Mr Barrios said at Sunday’s meeting. “I’m here to see if I’m tempted.”
The rally appeared to attract a crowd of more than 100, although many of those in attendance did not work at the facility.
Still, the momentum of the win this month seems to have fueled increased support for the union campaign from outsiders. Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, and Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, appeared at the meeting Sunday afternoon.
“I am seriously inspired,” Ms Nelson told those in attendance, adding: “This union is the answer to my prayers.”
On Sunday morning, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, also appeared on the site.
“I’m going to Staten Island to support the incredible courage of the Amazon workers there who stood up and defeated one of the largest corporations in America,” Sanders said in an interview on Friday.
He also called on President Biden to take a more active role in supporting union campaigns at Amazon and other companies, such as Starbucks, where more than 20 stores have been unionized since December.
“I made a suggestion to the White House – why not meet with some of the union organizers that are now active?” said Mr. Sanders. “Bring an organizer from Starbucks, from Amazon, from the other unions that organize. Listen to them, learn from them, ask them what they want, how the White House can be supportive.”
The 1.3 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is committed to uniting Amazon, looms large in the company’s broader organizational campaign because of its extensive reach and resources. Sean O’Brien, the president of the Teamsters, has talked about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the effort.
mr. O’Brien and Christian Smalls, the chairman of the Amazon Labor Union, met this month to discuss how the Teamsters could support Amazon employees in contracting with Amazon, the Teamsters said.
Another union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, appeared to lose a vote at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama in late March as the votes were counted. But the margin was smaller than the number of contested ballots, leaving the outcome uncertain.
Karen Weise reporting contributed.
