TO A year ago, Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York won a “historic” victory: defeating a multibillion-dollar campaign by the multibillion-dollar corporation to win the right to organize Amazon’s first union.
A year on from that victory, which labor leaders hoped would spark a wave of union victories, seems less momentous and another union election victory at Amazon remains elusive.
The company has continued to aggressively oppose unionization and organizing efforts at its warehouses. Critics accuse US laws and problems at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency charged with enforcing US labor law, have hampered the progress of the new labor movement.
And meanwhile, the Amazon Workers Union (ALU) has suffered internal conflicts and disagreements about future strategies and tactics. The Staten Island victory made ALU president Chris Smalls, whom Amazon management had personally denigrated, a star. Since then, several union leaders have resigned in protest of Smalls’ focus on travel and public appearances and expressed concern that rushed union elections elsewhere had come at the cost of focusing on the first union contract fight. at JFK8.
Even the victory at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island still faces problems. Amazon appealed and delayed accepting the JFK8 election results, and has yet to begin negotiations with the Amazon Workers Union.
In the past year, Amazon has opposed and fought subsequent union elections and union organizing drives at other sites and continues to fight charges of unfair labor practices presented by the workers involved in these campaigns. The charges range from firing workers to workplace access for worker organizing.
The company spent more than 14.2 million dollars on anti-union consultants in 2022.
“It’s a very clear demonstration of all the flaws in the National Labor Relations Board process and how the current law really works in favor of anti-union employers,” said Rebecca Givan, professor of labor studies and labor relations at the University of Rutgers. , about the long delays in resolving the NLRB charges and bringing Amazon to the bargaining table since the union election victory.
“It shows that the goals of the National Labor Relations Act are a long way from being met and to really recover, labor law reform is needed,” Givan added. “The fact that employers can spend an unlimited amount to fight unionization and hide a lot of that spending, the fact that workers who organize are not eligible at the same time, and the fact that employers can use every conceivable trick to delay, delay, delay and try to win a war of attrition. It shows all the holes in the current labor law.”
So far, no Amazon union campaign has come close to replicating the Staten Island victory. ALU came up short in union elections in Albany, New York, at another warehouse on Staten Island, and withdrew a union election petition shortly after filing it in California, though the union is currently secondary a union drive in Kentucky and at the Amazon air hub outside Cincinnati, Ohio.
Causa, another independent union organizing effort, has been entrepreneur to organize Amazon workers in the Fayetteville, North Carolina area beginning January 2022.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores union came up short in a repeat union election in March 2022 at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, after the NLRB ordered a new election due to Amazon misconduct during the first choice. The results of the second elections have not yet been finalized. The unfair labor practice charges are still being adjudicated and the election objections, which include 400 contested ballots that could influence the outcome, have yet to be decided.
Meanwhile, efforts to pass sweeping labor law reforms in Congress have stalled. The House passed the Joe Biden-backed pro-union Pro Act in 2021, but the bill failed to come to a vote in the Senate. Reintroduced in the House and Senate this year, the law now faces a Republican-controlled House that is unlikely to vote in its favor.
With unionization efforts stalled, unionization at Amazon has stretched beyond the goal of formally winning union elections.
He Coalition of AthenaConsisting of numerous worker centers and non-profit organizations, it has focused on supporting Amazon workers and their efforts to rally support for petitions and organize walkouts in support of specific demands at Amazon sites in Georgia, California, Illinois, Minnesota and other places.
The different organizational tracks share similar goals; improve grueling working conditions at Amazon, from addressing high injury rates and poor treatment of injured workers, constant worker surveillance and productivity pressures, lack of job security, and high turnover at manufacturing sites Amazon, Problems With Proper Bathroom Breaks, Even Lagging Pay Rates.
Anna Ortega has worked at Amazon’s KSBD air hub in San Bernardino, California, since June 2021. She initially refused to get involved in organizing efforts with Inland Empire Amazon Workers United on the site in late 2021, but decided to do so after seeing the impact of a petition effort to compensate workers for the site’s closure.
Since then, a group of workers at the site have called for, demonstrated and organized walkouts to improve heat protection for workers working outside on the air chutes, improve policies on how injured workers are treated and an increase wage of $5 per hour.
“We are fighting to be able to work with respect and to be treated like human beings and not like a little robot,” Ortega said.
Jennifer Crane started working at Amazon at STL8 outside St Louis, Missouri, as a packer in July 2021. A single mother of seven children, two of whom also work at the same Amazon warehouse, said she had seen numerous injuries and was injured on the job while trying to keep up with productivity demands in the warehouse.
“They need to reduce our work rate and give us a few more breaks, we need better accommodations for those who have injuries and treat their employees like they really care, because right now I don’t feel like they care, they are more concerned with getting so many boxes. however they can,” Crane said. “Amazon is designed to get customers their packages quickly. They don’t care about their employees.”
She He participated in a one-day strike in November 2022 as part of a “Make Amazon pay” to highlight working conditions and back wages at Amazon.
Workers also organized walkouts and petitions over economic, health and safety concerns at Amazon warehouses in Georgia, Minnesota and Illinois.
In Joliet, Illinois, the Warehouse Workers for Justice worker center has been organizing and supporting workers at Amazon’s MDW2 warehouse.
“Workers are still concerned about how the company addresses health and safety,” said Tommy Carden, an organizer with Warehouse Workers for Justice. “Amazon needs to start treating them with more respect, paying them better, and providing a healthier, safer workplace.”
Workers at the site have argued strikes and protests about racism on the site and to demand compensation for overtime and better wages.
“They want to be able to get paid fairly for their work, that means getting $25 an hour, a living wage,” said Maria Alfaro, organizing director for Warehouse Workers for Justice. “They say that even though Amazon trusts us, we are still invisible because we have low wages, unsafe working conditions and little job stability, so they want to see that change.”
In Georgia, workers participated in similar strikes and protests in late 2022, and archived various unfair labor practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board.
“Amazon, it’s one of the companies that really talks about how well they treat their workers, and yet when you talk to the workers, it’s the complete opposite,” said Aliss Lugo, an organizer with United for Respect at Amazon, who has been organizing Amazon workers in Georgia, where workers have gone on strike and filed petitions over labor conditions and policies, such as parking lot safety issues to improving restroom access.
“It is very difficult, but we are still doing it because I think it just shows how fed up and tired the workers are with the situation at work,” Lugo added. “They are looking for ways to bring their demands to the forefront, to put pressure on the company, from meeting with shareholders, speaking to the press and elected officials, and raising awareness. This really needs to be a community effort to encourage these workers and take forward the issues that they are talking about in any way possible outside of a traditional union election process.”
