After years of organizing amazon workers and pressuring the company to negotiate wages and working conditions, two prominent unions are teaming up to challenge the online retailer.
The partnership became final after members of the amazon Workers Union, the only union that formally represents amazon warehouse workers in the United States, overwhelmingly chose to affiliate with the 1.3 million-strong International Brotherhood of Teamsters. of members in the vote that ended on Monday. The vote was overseen by the amazon union.
The ALU scored a surprise victory in a Staten Island warehouse election in 2022. But it has yet to begin negotiating with amazon, which continues to challenge the election result. Leaders of both unions said the affiliation agreement would put them in a better position to challenge amazon and provide the ALU with more money and staff support.
“The Teamsters and ALU will fight fearlessly to ensure amazon workers get the good jobs and safe working conditions they deserve in a union contract,” Teamsters President Sean O'Brien said in a statement Tuesday. tomorrow.
amazon declined to comment on the affiliation.
The Teamsters are stepping up their efforts to organize amazon workers across the country. The union voted to create a division of amazon in 2021, and O'Brien was elected that year in part on a platform to make progress at the company.
The Teamsters told the ALU that they had allocated $8 million to support organizing at amazon, according to Christian Smalls, president of the ALU, and that the largest union was willing to tap into its more than $300 million strike and defense fund. of dollars to help in the effort. The Teamsters did not comment on their budget for organizing on amazon.
The Teamsters also recently reached an affiliation agreement with workers organizing at amazon's largest aircraft hub in the United States, a Kentucky facility known as KCVG. Experts have said unionizing KCVG could give workers substantial influence because amazon relies heavily on the center to meet its one- and two-day shipping goals.
David Levin, personnel director for Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a reform group within the union that helped mobilize United Parcel Service workers during last year's successful hiring drive, said many Teamsters members who were involved in lobbying UPS were now helping amazon workers organize.
“Worker-leaders and activists are coming out of the UPS contract campaign and participating in the creation of amazon volunteer organizing committees,” Levin said.
Efforts to unionize amazon over the past decade have been scattered among a variety of established unions and independent worker groups. Some experts argue that, given the size of the company and its long-standing opposition to unions, establishing a significant union presence there will require some organizational consolidation.
“We've had these different efforts, all these different foci, that produced some important advances,” said Barry Eidlin, a sociologist at McGill University in Montreal who studies the work. “But they also revealed the limitations of having a diffuse approach.”
The affiliation agreement with the Teamsters, a copy of which was shared with The New York Times, stipulates that the ALU will have the exclusive right within the Teamsters to organize additional amazon warehouse workers in New York City and promises to help the new local with the organization. , research, communications and legal representation.
It also gives the ALU a role in the broader Teamsters organization at amazon, stating that at least three members of the local will participate in “strategy and executive planning discussions” of the Teamsters' amazon division, and that the local “will lend his expertise to help organize other amazon facilities” across the country.
The ALU energized the union movement with its victory in 2022, but soon encountered major challenges. He lost a union election at a nearby warehouse on Staten Island a few weeks later and another election at a warehouse near Albany, New York, that fall.
The union began to fracture after the second defeat, with several ALU organizers expressing concerns that union leaders had too much power and were not accountable to members. Smalls claimed that the union was run by the workers.
An ALU splinter group critical of Smalls filed a lawsuit in 2023 seeking to force leadership elections. Both sides amazon-union-rivals-reach-court-deal-in-move-to-quell-hostility” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>announced an agreement in January, and elections are scheduled for the summer, which will be overseen by a federal court-approved monitor. Smalls is not a candidate, while the dissident group, the ALU Democratic Reform Caucus, is. present candidates for the four leadership positions. The list is led by Connor Spence, one of the founders of ALU.
Meanwhile, the ALU has faced financial difficulties and ended last year with $33,000 in assets and $81,000 in liabilities, according to federal documents.
In May, both ALU factions visited Teamsters headquarters in Washington, where Teamsters officials approached them with the idea of joining, Smalls said.
He said the Teamsters had offered to make their resources available to amazon workers, including strike pay, while largely preserving the independence of the amazon union. He signed the affiliation agreement in early June.
The singing x.com/ReformALU/status/1798384859137937869″ title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>surprised the reform caucus, which had told the Teamsters that ALU members would need more time to deliberate. But the caucus ultimately decided to support affiliation as long as ALU members ratified it, saying it would help “turn the beachhead we have secured on Staten Island into a militant, autonomous local.”
Spence, the reform group's candidate for ALU president, said that if his group won the leadership election in Staten Island, he would craft a plan to take on amazon in consultation with workers and present the plan to the Teamsters in hopes of securing the necesary resources.
amazon fired Spence last fall for what it said were violations of its policy governing access to its off-duty facilities. He is challenging the firing in a case that is before an administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board.
Spence and another fired amazon worker were removed by police last week after they appeared outside the warehouse trying to persuade workers to ratify the affiliation agreement. The officers handcuffed the two former workers, took them to a station and issued them with fines that required them to appear in court.
amazon spokeswoman Lisa Levandowski said the company had called the police because a group, mostly Teamsters, was creating a disturbance outside the warehouse and had refused amazon's request to leave. She said that after the police arrived, everyone except Mr. Spence and his former co-worker had left. (Employees may distribute materials outside the building during non-working hours.)
Spence said he had appeared in front of the building many times for organizational purposes in recent weeks without encountering police.
