Staten Island workers vote ‘yes’ for first Amazon union in U.S.
By Rand Wilson and Peter Olney
Against nearly impossible odds, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) a new, independent union has won the first NLRB supervised, union certification election at an Amazon warehouse in the US.[1]
On Friday, April 1 (no April Fools these workers!) the vote count was 2,654 in favor of the union and 2,131 against at “JFK8,” Amazon’s Staten Island Fulfillment Center.
Several excellent accounts of the vote with interviews of the workers leading the campaign have already been published by Labor Notes[2] and Jacobin.[3] The New York Times also published an excellent article.[4]
Prior to the vote, there was plenty of skepticism about the campaign in the labor movement and among the pundits. With only a small organizing committee, no budget, and no experience up against management’s ferocious anti-union campaign, most predicted a lopsided vote against joining ALU.
What the winning vote makes clear — is that after the Covid pandemic — there is a much broader uprising occurring among workers. Starbucks baristas[5], gaming companies’ programmers[6], the New York Times digital team[7], etc. have all recently formed new unions. The current “union moment” is having a broad impact.
The win shows that when it comes to a company of the size and scale of Amazon, the typical organizing tactics and strategies may not apply. We need to have an eclectic approach, recognizing that there will be many successes and failures in a long-term effort to build a strong union at Amazon.
“Workers responded militantly to the company’s scare tactics and began supporting each other as if they already had a union in the workplace.”
At the same time that Staten Island workers’ ballots were being counted, the votes were being tallied for the NLRB ordered re-run election at Amazon’s huge Fulfillment Center in Bessemer, Alabama. The outcome looks less promising there: support for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) union fell short: 993 ‘No’ votes to 875 ‘Yes’ votes. Nevertheless, the union did much better on the second attempt — and there are 416 challenged ballots which makes the final result still uncertain.[8]
There is one obvious difference between Staten Island and Bessemer Alabama: the high concentration of union members in the New York metropolitan area (6% in Alabama, 20% in New York state).[9]Higher union density leads to a positive “word of mouth” message about unions in working class households that is far more convincing than any leaflet or ad. The organizers of ALU also broke out of traditional organizing approaches. Workers responded militantly to the company’s scare tactics and began supporting each other as if they already had a union in the workplace.
The Staten Island vote supports what some union organizers call the “metro strategy.”[10] Amazon facilities are highly concentrated in metropolitan areas like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles where there is broader support for unions. In these areas, besides having giant fulfillment centers like the one on Staten Island, there are also dozens of “last mile” delivery stations with a smaller workforce. Coordinated actions at the delivery stations in just a few cities with a pro-union environment could have a huge ripple effect.
Undoubtedly Amazon will use every legal maneuver possible to avoid ALU being certified as the exclusive bargaining representative for the Staten Island workers. Management will likely file objections to conduct of the election with the NLRB seeking to have the vote reversed. And now the antiunion pressure will be even stronger for the upcoming union vote at LDJ5, a nearby Amazon sort facility where workers will vote between April 25- 29.
Conducting bargaining as “theater”
Assuming the ALU survives the legal obstacles to certification, all eyes will turn toward the process of negotiating a first collective bargaining agreement for the Staten Island workers. Traditionally bargaining is a button-down legal process with long arduous table talk and legal maneuvering.
Hopefully ALU will recognize that its negotiations for the Staten Island facilities will take place in a fishbowl: the Amazon workforce and the entire labor movement will be watching! That environment necessitates breaking out of the traditional legal straight jacket and conducting bargaining as “theater”– heralding the cause of justice for Amazon workers to the entire New York metro community, the broader labor movement, and Amazon’s customers.
United Parcel Service (UPS) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) are Amazon’s closest competitors. Amazon’s business model of super-labor-exploitation poses an existential threat to both the Teamsters and the postal workers’ unions. Similarly, its acquisition of Whole Foods threatens standards at UFCW organized supermarkets.[11]
These more established unions have already been quietly organizing at other Amazon facilities. Will they have the humility to learn the lessons from ALU’s approach? The initial signs are positive: After the election results were announced, Teamsters newly-elected president Sean O’Brian said, “I commend anybody who tries to take on a schoolyard bully like Amazon.”[12]
Postal Workers union president Mark Dimondstein proposed that, “The organized labor movement should unite and build a multi-union crusade to help organize Amazon workers throughout the country.” Dimondstein further stated that his union is, “Ready to assist the newly organized workers at Staten Island in any way we can in the coming and challenging battle to win a good first union contract.”[13] Let’s hope that other unions and the entire labor movement will adopt a similar ecumenical and class solidarity approach!
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[1] Amazon Labor Union, https://www.amazonlaborunion.org/
[2] https://labornotes.org/2022/04/amazon-workers-staten-island-clinch-historic-victory
[3] “Here’s How We Beat Amazon, an interview with Angelika Maldonado,” by Eric Blanc, Jacobin Magazine, April 2, 2022, https://jacobinmag.com/2022/04/amazon-labor-union-alu-staten-island-organizing
[4] “Amazon Workers on Staten Island Vote To Unionize in Landmark Win for Labor,” Karen Weise and Noam Scheiber, New York Times, April 1, 2022, https://portside.org/2022-04-01/amazon-workers-staten-island-vote-unionize-landmark-win-labor
[5] https://sbworkersunited.org/
[6] The Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA) https://www.code-cwa.org/
[7] The NewsGuild https://www.nyguilddigital.org/
[8] “The Amazon Bessemer union election is going into overtime,” https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004479/amazon-workers-vote-results-union-bessemer-warehouse-challenged-ballots-results
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_affiliation_by_U.S._state
[10] https://stansburyforum.com/2021/10/01/think-bigger-new-possibilities-for-building-workers-power-at-amazon
[11] “Organizing Amazon Is Do-or-Die for the Labor Movement,” by Eli Rose, Jacobin Magazine, 09.29.2021,
[12] “Union chief vows to pressure Amazon after historic New York vote,” Steven Greenhouse, The Guardian, April 2, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/02/teamsters-president-sean-obrien-amazon-union
[13] “Statement by APWU President Mark Dimondstein on the Amazon Workers Union Victory in Staten Island and the Ongoing union election in Alabama,” APWU website, April 1, 2022, https://apwu.org/news/statement-apwu-president-mark-dimondstein-amazon-workers-union-victory-staten-island-and
Thanks, as always, to Rand and Peter for their insightful and timely coverage of the important events for labor! I’ve been following this with great enthusiasm, but you opened further perspectives re: the bargaining process, the metro strategy, and the symbiosis with UPS and USPS workers. Hurrah!