Battle lost. After a first resounding victory at the beginning of April Amazon Labor Union (ALU) did not succeed in its bet: the employees of an Amazon sorting center in New York voted 62% against the arrival of the organization on their site.
According to a count broadcast online, 618 employees voted “no” to the question of whether they wanted to be represented by ALU, against 380 who voted “yes”. About 1,633 employees in total were called upon to vote last week, during a ballot spread from April 25 to 29. A total of 998 expressed themselves, representing a participation rate of 61%.
Incipient unionization at Amazon
Second largest employer in the United States after the distribution giant Walmart, Amazon had so far succeeded in repelling the desires of employees wishing to regroup in the country since its creation in 1994. ALU had created a surprise in early April by becoming the first union of the company in the United States, within the JFK8 warehouse in the district of Staten Island in New York.
In the wake of its first success, ALU generated excitement, its members claiming to have been contacted by representatives of warehouses across the country. The organization hoped to score another victory at the LDJ5 sorting center located across the street.
US President Joe Biden himself made a strong case for unions in early April, declaring: “. Left-wing elected officials Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also came to support the movement in front of the LDJ5 sorting center on the eve of the start of the ballot.
The result at JFK8 contested
On his side, the company filed an appeal against the result of the vote at JFK8, considering in particular that members of the ALU “intimidated” the employees and accusing the New York branch of the agency responsible for supervising the ballot, NLRB, of being biased. An NLRB official from another branch where the file was relocated, in Phoenix, agreed to hold a hearing on the group objections on May 23, saying they could “be grounds for annulment of the election “.
Motivated by the attitude of their company during the Covid pandemic, in particular on health protection, and more recently by inflation, several groups of employees in different companies are currently trying to organize themselves. This is the case at Starbucks. Hot on the heels of a token first victory in December, employees at more than 250 cafes filed for a vote and more than 40 have so far voted to form a union within their institution.
With AFP
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