The seemingly rocky relationship between Amazon and New York City residents continues as Staten Island warehouse workers rescinded a petition to hold a union vote.
The borough reportedly hosts four Amazon warehousing facility that possesses workforce union advocates believed stood at approximately 5,000. Efforts to unionize have been tough sledding as the upstart Amazon Labor Union (ALU) filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold an employee vote.
“We’ve been out there for six months, meeting workers and signing workers day and night. Sometimes I’ve been out for 36 hours straight, just trying to get to our goal,” Amazon Labor Union president and organizer Chris Smalls reportedly said. “The workers that are organizing themselves within these facilities, because they’re the ones that are really inside the facility, to see that, to witness and to be a part of it, it’s just been a magical experience, something that I’ve never fathomed.”
A union is typically required to gather approval signatures from at least 30 percent of the employee ranks to file a petition. The fledgling ALU worked tirelessly to secure 2,000 signatures. Although that seemed to meet the filing requirements in their view, the seasonal and transitory nature of Amazon workers upended a vote.
Too many workers who provided their signatures for the filing moved on to other employment opportunities. And Amazon officials indicated the organization had more than 6,000 employees at the fulfillment center and upwards of 9,600 across its Staten Island campus. Smalls and his enthusiastic union hopefuls discovered they’d fallen below the 30-percent requirement.
“As soon as we can get enough cards, we’ll resubmit,” he reportedly said.
Smalls was reportedly dismissed from his Amazon job in 2020. The dust-up came when Amazon employees were reportedly protesting working conditions during the height of the pandemic.
Ranked among the largest revenue-generating corporation in the U.S., Amazon officials declined to open a headquarters in New York City after political pushback was leveled by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. Amazon reportedly withdrew a plan that would have created nearly 50,000 jobs because political figures objected to massive financial incentives the city offered to attract the e-commerce operation.
Labor activists have repeatedly attempted to unionize Amazon facilities to no avail. In Alabama, workers opposed joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union with 71 percent of employees voting against the measure.
The e-commerce corporation that dominates the sector reportedly enjoys a workforce that exceeds 1.4 million employees worldwide. To date, no established or upstart organization has successfully unionized warehouse workers, drivers, or any facility in the U.S.
Sources: freightwaves.com, wsj.com
Ah, so Chris Smalls is a salt, planted in Amazon for just this purpose. My wife’s grandfather did that his whole life. He’d get a job at a place, agitate for a union, get fired, but continue to organize, paid by over-unions. He was always promised that he would get his job back after a union vote, but one of the first things negotiated by the new union would be that their organizers would not be re-hired. I guess I should feel sorry for Smalls, but I don’t.
I was union for 13 years back in the 60’s early 70’s. Got sick and tired of the triple standard I had to work under.
Unions made demands and then demand the members do the dirty work,under threats.The only benefit I received from the union was it paid for my daughters birth. As far a being a union member it did nothing for it’s membership but use us as a threat of shut down.Union meetings were a joke. Clowns ( members) running up and down the isle screaming and yelling to fire up the membership into voting for what the union wanted not what the membership needed.To me it was funny as hell .The union at where I worked was paid 1 dollar per each union employee per hour by the company or there would be problems..I believe you should keep your job by doing your job.
The only ones who come out smelling like a rose in a union are the the guys pulling the strings in the local. Think bee hive and they’re the queens. If you mind set isn’t that you are responsible for yourself and it’s up to you to do what it takes to reach the goal you set, you are delusional as to the outcome. Let’s face it, we aren’t all born to be kings, at least not on Earth. If you don’t like driving a shovel or shoveling burgers, choose a different profession. To join a group of thugs who will beat your wages out of an employer is just plain chickenshit.
I heard working for Amazon at one of those warehouses is bad. But if it’s so bad you need a union, leave and find work somewhere else. Unions aren’t there for you, they’re there for themselves.
I guess time for Amazon to leave nyc
Amazon has figured out how to keep the union out. The warehouses have high turn over and seasonal hiring. By the time they get the signatures needed a lot of the people are no longer there. Just as this story indicates. The workers most from the lowest rung of the economic ladder are desperate for a job and easily intimidated. The drivers aren’t employed by the company but by a person or small company that has an area jurisdiction. You have to organize each one an almost impossible task. That’s why you only hear about organizing the warehouse workers. Those people desperately need collective bargaining to better their working conditions and amazon can easily afford it.