A second Amazon union election begins in New York
Hundreds of Amazon employees at a Staten Island sorting facility known as LDJ5 began casting votes Monday on whether or not to organize with Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the newly established union started by a group of current and former Amazon warehouse workers in the area.
ALU successfully organized a union at a larger Amazon facility just weeks ago, in a first for Amazon’s US workers in the tech giant’s 27-year history. Since then, leaders of the group have taken a victory lap — meeting with a range of labor leaders and visiting the US Capitol — while also gearing up for another battle at the polls this week.
In a last-minute push on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez met with a small group of Amazon warehouse workers behind closed doors at a hotel on Staten Island before making their way to a makeshift stage outside the LDJ5 building to give public remarks. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez each took turns joining ALU president Christian Smalls to speak to members of the press, labor organizers and Amazon workers.
Shortly after Ocasio-Cortez spoke, Smalls — clad in a bomber jacket that read “Eat the Rich” — told onlookers: “This is the revolution.”
A grassroots group gets embraced by big names
Smalls was fired from Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in the early days of the pandemic after participating in a walkout over pandemic-related health and safety concerns. While he says his firing was retaliation, the company claims he was terminated for violating its policy that required him to quarantine after being notified of a possible Covid-19 exposure.
“Just the fact that they came here … I think that’s going to resonate with the workers … It is not just the ALU speaking out, now we have people like Bernie [Sanders] who have a powerful voice,” ALU vice president Derrick Palmer told CNN Business. Palmer noted that he’s confident in the union’s chance of scoring a second win.
Two warehouses but ‘the core issues are the same’
One LDJ5 worker, Andrew Perez, who was in attendance Sunday, told CNN Business that he worked at JFK8, a warehouse where workers pick and pack items into boxes. Six months ago, he transferred to LDJ5, which sorts the boxes for delivery.
Perez said he plans to vote in favor of the union this week and is curious about getting more involved. Similarly, ALU’s treasurer and LDJ5 employee Madeline Wesley told CNN Business that “the core issues are the same — we get the same starting pay, the same benefits… JFK8 and LDJ5, we are one,”
Wesley said she has seen a ramp up in anti-union sentiment inside the facility, both from workers who oppose the union and from the company’s representatives. Outside the facility, a bus stop that JFK8 and LDJ5 share is peppered with pro-ALU signage, from stickers to a New York Times article covering the JFK8 victory.
In particular, the company took issue with the agency’s push for the reinstatement of a JFK8 Amazon employee named Gerald Bryson, who is now an ALU organizer, just before the election got underway.
Amazon has denied retaliating against Bryson (who first filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB in June 2020) claiming he was fired for “sexist verbal assault against a female co-worker,” referring to an incident that took place during a protest. But in a blow to Amazon, last week an NLRB administrative law judge found that the company violated labor law, ordering that Bryson be reinstated and to be paid his lost wages.
In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said, “we strongly disagree with the NLRB judge’s ruling,” noting that “Mr. Bryson was fired for bullying, cursing at, and defaming a female co-worker over a bullhorn in front of the workplace.” Nantel said the company intends to appeal the judge’s decision.
Frank Kearl, a staff attorney at Make the Road New York who represented Bryson in his NLRB case, said in a statement, “this victory should give other workers who are organizing to demand better working conditions reassurance that Amazon is not above the law.”
Kearl added, “[Amazon] has been ordered to reinstate Gerald by May 2, these willfully false statements about him serve no purpose but to defame his character.”
Amazon Labor Union looks for a second win
While Amazon Labor Union’s leadership has stressed that it will remain an independent union, it has also been aligning with established labor to take on the company. Hours after Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez spoke on Sunday, a crowd reassembled for an ALU-led rally that included Sara Nelson, president of the AFL-CIO’s Association of Flight Attendants-CWA.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez also hit at state tax breaks in her speech, suggesting that Amazon be held accountable should it not negotiate a contract with ALU. “They’ve gotta do their end of the deal, too,” she said.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this.
The outcome of the election at LDJ5 is likely to have broader implications for Amazon. While notching a second win would provide “a huge boost” for ALU’s efforts, Amazon has more to lose, according to John Logan, professor of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University.
“A second loss for Amazon would be far more damaging to the company’s anti-union campaign than a loss for the ALU would be to future organizing efforts at Amazon,” said Logan, who noted that the support of Democratic labor leaders is also significant. “It sends the message that the workers won’t be alone in fighting to get a union and a contract at Amazon and makes clear that Amazon won’t be able to undermine the union with impunity.”
Quoted from Various Sources
Published for: Ipodifier
