Published
The employees of the Staten Island Amazon site in New York have just validated the creation of a union in their company. It’s the first time since the retail giant was founded 27 years ago.
Second largest employer in the United States after the distribution giant Walmart, the group had since its creation in 1994 succeeded in repelling the desires of employees wishing to regroup in the country.
AFP
A small group of motivated activists made one of the largest multinationals falter: the workers of an Amazon warehouse in New York voted in favor of the creation of a union, a first in the United States. The “yes” won it by 2,654 votes against 2,131, according to a count broadcast online on Friday. The victory was hailed by the American president himself, who said he was “happy” that the employees could be heard.
When the results were announced, applause rang out in the small crowd gathered for the occasion at the bottom of the building in the Brooklyn district where the counting was organized, noted an AFP journalist. Many were still surprised at their success. “ALU,” the union name for Amazon Labor Union, is chanted several times. Its president Christian Smalls uncorks a bottle of champagne. In front of the press, he ironically thanks the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, for having gone into space, “because while he was up there, we were able to set up a union”.
The company for its part expressed in a press release its “disappointment” and said “evaluate its options”. Amazon is considering filing a challenge against the “inappropriate influence” of the agency responsible for overseeing the election (NLRB). Second largest employer in the United States after the distribution giant Walmart, the group had since its creation in 1994 succeeded in repelling the desires of employees wishing to regroup in the country. “It’s truly a historic day,” said ALU’s attorney, Eric Milner. “I think it can start a chain reaction, from one warehouse to another.”
A total of 8,325 workers at the JFK8 site in the Staten Island neighborhood were on the voters list. Called to vote from March 25 to 30 in a tent set up in front of the warehouse, 4,852 employees slipped a ballot into the ballot box.
‘So unlikely’
“They had so little chance of winning,” observes Rebecca Givan, a specialist in labor movements at Rutgers University. She was not very optimistic in the run-up to the vote, as the current law on trade unions is particularly favorable to employers. And ALU, created last spring by a small group of current and former Amazon employees in New York, had little means against a behemoth having earned more than 30 billion dollars in 2021.
“We may have spent a total of $120,000,” raised through crowdfunding campaigns or T-shirt sales, remarks Madeline Wesley, member of ALU. The company, for its part, hired specialized consultants and summoned the employees to several mandatory meetings to present to them the disadvantages of a union. “It’s not that it’s going to cost them a lot more money,” notes Neil Saunders, distribution specialist at GlobalData. “But they don’t like a union interfering.”
A first union at Starbucks too
The movement had started at the start of the pandemic, when a few warehouse employees organized a small demonstration to demand more health protection against Covid-19. Christian Smalls was soon after fired. They then decided to try their luck on their own after an experienced labor union was rejected in the spring of 2021 at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. A second vote took place there recently and Thursday evening, the “no” led there with 993 ballots, against 875 “yes”. But there remained 416 so-called “disputed” ballots, which will decide the result.
ALU is already mobilized for its next battle: the LDJ5 sorting center, across the street from the JFK8 warehouse. A vote will take place at the end of the month. “I’m sure we’ll win there too,” said Christian Smalls, who has spent the last eleven months at the bus stop serving the two buildings talking to employees. On the decline for several decades, the unions have won several symbolic victories in the United States in recent months, starting with the explicit support of Joe Biden. The creation of the first union in a Starbucks coffee directly managed by the chain in the United States in December aroused enthusiasm while employees, often young and educated, mobilized in NGOs, universities, museums, media.
But Amazon, “it’s a different scale,” remarks Ruth Milkman, labor sociologist at CUNY University, saying she is “stunned” and “impressed” by what ALU has managed to do despite its limited means. “I don’t know if this will cause a wave, but it will surely inspire others to see that, despite all the obstacles, it is possible.”
(AFP)