Amazon warehouse workers on Staten Island have enough support for the union election. The Amazon Labor Union has collected signatures of all the employees to show their support for the vote.
If this vote happens this will be the second unionization vote for Amazon this year.
The board’s confirmed on Wednesday that the warehouse workers begin to re-vote to join the union.
Amazon might be the first unionized warehouse in the United States. In Europe, there has been a lot of unionized warehouses seen. The company has secured the place of the country’s second-largest private employers. The company had 1 million U.S. workers in the previous year.
The first union vote was held last year in Bessemer, Alabama. But the result of the vote was against unionizing. The new election can be expected in late March this year, with 6,200 eligible workers.
In an interview, Kelly Nantel said, ‘We’re skeptical that there are a sufficient number of legitimate signatures and we’re seeking to understand how these signatures were verified’. He even added, ‘Our employees have always had a choice of whether or not to join a union’.
The labor of Staten Island was standing out for not being affiliated with any national union. It is a self-organized, grassroots worker group called the Amazon Labor Union. The group was financed by GoFundMe. This is run by Chris Smalls, he led a walkout to protest about the working conditions but he was fired from the company on the same day.
The group was made near about 5000 workers of the Staten Island warehouse. It has been said that over 2500 workers have signed the cards in support of the union election.
For this election, Smalls said, ‘The momentum is with us, the energy is with us, the workers are excited’. He even added, ‘We’re celebrating at this moment but we know it’s going to be a long hard battle ahead. We’re prepared’.
The labor organization of Amazon and the NLRB will have to sort out procedural issues, along with the size of the potential bargaining unit, before a vote can be scheduled. There is a hearing that can be expected on 16th February.
