The new labor union, began by a fired employee and led by former and present workers, received 55 % of the vote in its first election on April 1, with little help from established nationwide unions. Workers at the large JFK8 warehouse voted 2,654 to 2,131 to be a part of the ALU — gorgeous many labor observers who believed that Amazon would reach utilizing its huge sources to discourage employees from organizing.
Now the union has taken its combat throughout the road to smaller warehouse LDJ5, which has about 1,500 workers.
“The ALU is in a strong position because if they win, they’ve harnessed the momentum and they’ve shown that this is really building to something,” stated Rebecca Givan, an affiliate professor of labor research at Rutgers University. “And if they lose, they’ve just shone a light on the brutality of the union busting.”
The ALU turned its full consideration to the second warehouse after notching its first victory. Amazon responded by ratcheting up anti-union techniques at the power. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
The firm has strongly opposed the union campaigns, paying outdoors consultants tens of millions of {dollars} to discourage workers at its U.S. warehouses from voting sure. Amazon additionally has held “captive audience meetings,” the place it requires employees to go away their work stations and attend lessons meant to dissuade them from unionizing. And it has printed posters, despatched textual content messages and handed out fliers suggesting that the union’s main motive is amassing union dues and enriching itself.
Those sort of techniques may be arduous for organizers to overcome, however the ALU succeeded at the bigger warehouse. The vote count for the second facility is probably going to be completed Monday night.
The day earlier than voting began final week at the smaller warehouse, politicians and labor leaders rushed to Staten Island to help union organizers and to stress Amazon to acknowledge the union, even because it protests the end result of the primary election.
Many pro-labor politicians and prime executives of enormous, established unions had been reluctant to embrace the ALU earlier than its shocking victory. Now they view the union’s success as important to reviving an organized-labor motion that has been shrinking for many years.
The day earlier than voting began on April 25, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and different labor supporters gathered outdoors the Staten Island facility.
“You have been an inspiration for millions of workers all across this country who have looked at you … and said that if they could do it in Staten Island, we could do it throughout this country,” Sanders instructed a crowd packed on a patch of worn grass simply past the warehouse’s car parking zone.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) gestured towards the 8,000-person warehouse that was dwelling to the ALU’s first victory on April 1, calling it “the first domino to fall.”
The politicians had been joined later within the afternoon by Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who pledged to assist the ALU develop right into a nationwide drive.
“Morally, we must support you. Righteously, we must support you,” she stated. “Because with you goes workers’ rights; with you goes solidarity; with you goes everything.”
For many workers of the LDJ5 warehouse, the stakes had been extra private. Worker Micheal Aguilar, 22, a union supporter, stated he has seen “so many of my friends and family fired for the stupidest things” throughout his years with the corporate. He hoped the union would deliver job safety and higher pay.
“I want people to stay here as long as they want,” he stated. “I want people to have livable wages instead of slave wages.”
Last yr, an Amazon warehouse in Alabama was the primary in a number of years to maintain a vote on unionizing. That vote failed, however regulators later referred to as for a repeat after discovering that Amazon had improperly interfered with the method. The second vote stays too shut to name.
The ALU has heard from employees at dozens of different warehouses who’re desirous about organizing, in accordance to the union’s interim president, Chris Smalls. After the LDJ5 vote, he stated, organizers plan to take a brief break from campaigning to strategize about how greatest to scale up their effort.
“We got a lot on our shoulders now, obviously, after the first victory,” he stated.
The organizing push at Amazon coincides with rising labor momentum at different massive companies, notably Starbucks, the place employees at dozens of shops have voted this yr to be a part of unions. National labor unions are hoping to be a part of the motion at Amazon after the ALU’s win, throwing their help behind the impartial union within the type of pledges of cash, workplace house and authorized assist.
“The unions close to the action at JFK8 seemed to know that the ALU needed a lot of elbow room,” stated John Logan, the chair of the labor and employment research division at San Francisco State University. “Other unions should follow their lead and make clear their readiness to assist, but at the call of the self-organizers.”
The ALU has stated it believes a lot of its power comes from being “insiders” at Amazon.