Amazon employees on Staten Island vote for the firm's first unionized warehouse
Key takeaways:
- Amazon employees at a Staten Island warehouse voted Friday to enter a union, the first time that's happened at one of the firm's U.S. facilities.
- The result means a landmark win for managed labor, which has attempted to organize Amazon warehouse and delivery workers for years.
- By voting in a union, Staten Island employees stand to disrupt Amazon's existing labor model, which is the spine of its Prime two-day shipping promise.
Workers at an Amazon warehouse on New York's Staten Island voted Friday to enter a union, a groundbreaking move for organized labor and a bitter loss for the e-commerce giant, which has aggressively opposed unionization efforts at the firm.
The total was 2,654 votes in favor of joining the union and 2,131 opposed. Around 8,325 workers were eligible to vote on whether to become part of the Amazon Labor Union. There were 67 contested ballots, a gap that's too little to change the election's result. The results still need to be formally approved by the National Labor Relations Board.
The Staten Island facility, known as JFK8, is Amazon's most giant in New York and now is the first in the U.S. to unionize despite employees having to gaze down an extensive anti-union campaign. Amazon papered the walls at JFK8 with banners that proclaimed "Vote No," set up a website, and held weekly required meetings. It even hired an effective consulting and polling company with close ties to Democratic political groups and touted its benefits over those offered by unions.
By voting in the Amazon Labor Union, Staten Island workers could question the firm's present labor model, which is the spine of its Prime two-day shipping promise. Unions stand to disrupt the status of control that Amazon exerts over its warehouse and delivery workers, like its ability to set the rate of work and hourly wages unilaterally, labor experts earlier told CNBC.