The company is ‘disappointed’
Employees form Amazon’s first union
4/1/2022 at 11:37 PM
For a long time, online retailer Amazon has been fighting against organizing its employees into unions. Now he has to face defeat: The Staten Island workforce is voting to represent employees — and gloating about CEO Bezos.
It’s a historic premiere: Amazon mail order employees voted to establish union representation in the group in the USA. According to the count, the vote of employees of the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island in New York resulted in a majority of 2,654 votes to 2,131 votes. The internet giant has been fighting union formation for years and has now suffered a serious defeat.
After the results were announced, supporters of the union’s formation chanted. “We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going into space,” Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Workers Union, said sarcastically of the Amazon founder. “Because while he was there, we recruited people.” Bezos participated in the first manned rocket flight for the space company Blue Origin, which he founded, last July.
Congratulations to those working at Camp JFK8 came from US President Joe Biden. “The president was delighted to see workers make sure their voices are heard when making important workplace decisions,” Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki said at the White House. “He firmly believes that every worker in every country should have a free and fair choice to join a union and the right to collective bargaining with an employer.”
Another vote is scheduled for the end of April
Amazon, on the other hand, was “disappointed” with the vote result. The second largest private employer in the United States has announced that it will study its options for employment. This includes potential objections due to the “undue influence” of the US labor law authority, the NLRB, that oversaw the vote.
So far, no branch of the Internet giant in the United States has been able to form a consortium. In April of last year, the first such attempt at a logistics center in Bessemer, Alabama failed. The vast majority of employees voted against employee representation.
However, in November, the NLRB upheld an appeal by a union alleging improper influence and abuse of Amazon. The result of the vote was therefore annulled, and a new vote, which had recently been held, was decided. However, in this case, the majority will likely be missed again in Bessemer, as is now evident.
The next vote is planned at another warehouse: At the LDJ5 sorting center opposite the JKF8 warehouse on Staten Island, voting is scheduled for the end of April. Amazon is under fire in the US for its working conditions. Trade unions and politicians criticize the fact that employees of the group, which was founded in 1994, are subjected to high work pressure and constant surveillance. In Germany, the Verdi union has been fighting for years to ensure that Amazon employees get a collective agreement and are paid according to its retail and mail order tariffs.