With a few dozen votes to go, workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York City appear to have enough votes to unionize. The final result was 2,654 votes in favor and 2,131 with 67 challenges. JFK8 Fulfillment Center in Staten Island will join Amazon Labor Union due to insufficient number of challenges to affect outcome.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found in January that union efforts at the facility had “shown sufficient interest” to hold an election. The facility employs around 5,000 people.
The ALU has been trying to unionize Amazon workers in New York for nearly two years. In October 2021, she petitioned the NLRB to hold a union election for two Amazonian facilities on Staten Island, but later withdrew the petition because she did not have enough signatures. The union filed again in December, focusing only on camp JFK8, which was the scene of several worker protests and strikes during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Contrary to Bessemer’s union efforts, the ALU is not affiliated with any national union or larger organization. It is the personal project of Christian Smalls, who was fired from the Staten Island site after organizing a strike.
The JFK8 election is the first to sanction a union for Amazon warehouse workers in the US. Following another union campaign at Amazon’s BHM1 plant in Bessemer, Alabama, the NLRB ordered a rerun of an election held last year after finding Amazon obstructed the first election. On Thursday, votes in Bessemer appeared to be 933 against and 875 against the union, but with the final result being so close there will be a hearing on 416 contested ballots. The hearing is expected to be scheduled in the next few weeks, and both the union and Amazon have an opportunity to object to the election in the coming month.
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