(CNN Business)Amazon (AMZN) Warehouse employees at a warehouse located in New York City have voted to create an unprecedented US Union in the company’s 27-year history. This is an incredible victory for an effort based on bootstraps and headed by a fired employee.
In a scrutinized election, employees at JFK8 in Staten Island, New York facility called JFK8 decided to form a union with a new group known as Amazon Labor Union (ALU), founded by former and current warehouse workers.
There were 2,654 ballots in favor of unionizing and 2,131 votes in opposition by the conclusion of the second day of counting votes for public officials on Friday. From the roughly 8,325 eligible voters, 478 votes were counted, and 67 ballots were called for the challenge. Seventeen ballots were invalidated.
Parties have five days to file objections.
In a statement following the election, Amazon indicated investigating various legal avenues to challenge the outcome. “We’re disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees,” Amazon stated in its statement. “We’re evaluating our options.”
The shocking outcome could prove to be a turning point for Amazon and the larger union protests across the United States. The vote by the union could change the way Amazon is, the second-largest private employer, interacts with a portion of its vast workforce. This could add fuel to organizing within Amazon’s sprawling empire and other areas where initiatives are currently underway, like in an Amazon Fresh store in Seattle and other businesses across the country.
The victory was celebrated by groups representing advocacy, major unions, and The White House, with press secretary Jen Psaki telling reporters Friday that president Joe Biden was “glad to see workers ensure that their voices were heard.” John Logan, professor of studies in employment and labor at San Francisco State University, described the ALU victory as a “jaw-dropping result.” He said: “There is no bigger prize for unions than winning at Amazon.”
After the tally was completed, Christian Smalls, the president of the ALU, who is primarily the spokesperson for the group, was among other ALU organizers and members of other labor organizations who had assembled in the city center of Brooklyn to celebrate winning. Drinking a glass of champagne and sporting a pair of pants with the company’s name “Billionaire Boys Club,” Smalls provided a brief overview of his tense relationship with the business.
“Two years ago, my life changed forever,” said Smalls, who was dismissed from this facility in March of 2020 after organizing a walkout to protest concerns about safety and health concerns. (Smalls says he was fired in retaliation; Amazon says he was dismissed for violating the company’s policy which required him to be quarantined after being informed of exposure to Covid-19.) “I only wanted to do the right thing and speak up for workers behind me,” the worker said.
In his remarks, he also spoke of a widely reported suggestion by the Amazon senior executive back in the year 2020 to denigrate Smalls in the sense of being “not smart or articulate.” The executive claimed that his remarks were “personal and emotional” and that he’d let emotion “get the better of me.”
“It’s not about me. Amazon tried to make it about me from day one,” Smalls declared. “It’s always going to be Amazon versus the people and today, the people said they wanted a union.”
At the event, people handed out flyers that read, “Vote Yes For The Union. Despite what Amazon tells you, the union isn’t some outside organization. It’s legal recognition of our right to have a say at work — as a group instead.” The members of another labor-friendly group held up a massive banner that read: “Amazon and Starbucks: Stop Union Busting! Recognize the union and negotiate now!”
A different do-over vote at a facility located in Bessemer, Alabama, was too close to be able to make a call. According to the poll results, the total number of workers in the facility voted in favor of joining a union while 993 opposed it, which were also taken on Thursday. However, another 416 ballots were disputed. The National Labor Relations Board expects to conduct a hearing on the issue in the coming weeks to determine if any of the challenged ballots are opened to count and analyze.
A bootstrapped push is booming while an established union fell.
Both of the union initiatives were born by worker anger over Amazon’s treatment of employees during the epidemic and inspired by an increase in public attention paid to justice issues for all races and labor rights. However, there are some critical distinctions between them.
The Alabama initiative was carried out in collaboration with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU). This union has been around for 85 years and has gathered hundreds of thousands of employees. In contrast, this Staten Island push is not associated with a labor organization but seeks to establish its own.
Smalls had previously told CNN Business that ALU is operating using “pennies compared to other campaigns,” generating the sum of $100,000 through the pages of GoFundMe, which is a crowdfunding platform.
He has tried to distinguish his efforts to organize from one at Bessemer in a statement that an independent union governed by former and present employees of the Bessemer facility “was working and resonated with the workers.” (ALU has also gathered enough signatures to hold the NLRB election at an adjacent Amazon facility located in Staten Island later this month.)
The two union drives are currently taking place in two distinct regions of the nation. The RWDSU initiative was carried out in Alabama, a state with a right-to-work system in which the number of union members is deficient. New York, on the contrary, is the second-highest union membership of any state in the United States. Amazon’s minimum wage for employees, which is at least $15 per hour, is also different from respect to Alabama, in which the state’s minimum wage stands at $7.25 in comparison with New York’s minimum wage of $15.
“They’re enormously important elections. [Amazon] is a company that is not just retail, it is not just logistics, it cuts across almost every sector of the economy,” Logan declared.
“I think lots of pro-union Amazon workers will take inspiration from this. Staten Island has nothing exceptional to suggest that you can win at Amazon there but not somewhere else,” Logan stated. “Suddenly, organizing at Amazon no longer seems futile.”
Logan says he was a part of the original RWDSU Bessemer campaign one year back, which was lauded by a variety of famous people and politicians to create “energy and enthusiasm amongst young people interested in organizing themselves.” Although the outcomes of that election favored Amazon and the company, the second round of voting was demanded when the company was found to have interfered illegally. (An Amazon spokesperson called the decision “disappointing” at the time.)
Experts from the labor market have repeatedly claimed that organizing Amazon employees is challenging due to the current labor laws and Amazon’s reluctance to these initiatives. Amazon’s anti-union campaign included signs within their warehouses and text messages and meetings that employees had to participate in before the election.
“In both cases, it’s a David and Goliath situation. They’re up against a mighty, determined opponent,” Ruth Milkman, an expert in labor sociology at the City University of New York, previously spoke to CNN Business. “In both cases, it’s a very heavy lift because of Amazon’s resources and determination to stamp out any unionization efforts.”
Amazon has stated that its “employees have always had the choice of whether or not to join a union,” and it’s committed to “working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work.”
