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Amazon union voting begins at second Staten Island warehouse


Protesters during an Amazon Labor Union (ALU) rally in the Staten Island borough of New York, United States, on Sunday, April 24, 2022.

Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | beautiful pictures

Amazon Workers are casting their votes on Monday as part of another high-stakes union at a warehouse on New York’s Staten Island.

About 1,500 workers at the LDJ5 warehouse were eligible to vote in the election, which took place in a large white tent outside the facility. Voting begins early Monday morning and continues through Friday. The National Labor Relations Board will begin counting votes on May 2.

The election is happening right across the street from another Amazon warehouse, called JFK8, in an unexpected move, voted in the company’s first US union less than a month ago. Unlike JFK8, a huge, 855,000-square-foot warehouse with about 6,000 employees, LDJ5 is a much smaller facility where employees sort packages for delivery.

The Amazon Labor Union, which includes current and former employees of the company, is looking to consolidate Amazon’s second warehouse after a landmark victory at JFK8. ALU is calling Amazon increased hourly wages for all workers to a minimum of $30/hour. The average hourly starting salary at US fulfillment centers is $18 an hour, according to Amazon. Unions are also looking for longer breaks and improved benefits, among other needs.

The more labor unions like the ALU target Amazon, the more aggressive Amazon becomes in discouraging employee participation. The company held mandatory meetings at the LDJ5, where employees were asked to sit through anti-union presentations, and even hired an influential Democratic pollster to support its campaign.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin last week that the company thinks employees are “better off” if they don’t join the union.

“At a place like Amazon that empowers employees, if they see something they can do better for a customer or for themselves, they can come together in the room, decide how to change it, and change it. ,” Jassy said. “That kind of empowerment doesn’t happen when you have unions. It’s much more bureaucratic, much slower.”

Amazon looking to turn upside down election results at JFK8, argued in a petition to the NLRB that the federal labor agency and union acted in a way that damaged the outcome. An attorney representing ALU called Amazon’s allegations “clearly absurd.”

Since the successful election at JFK8, Christian Smalls, president of ALU and a former Amazon employee, said he heard from several workers at other Amazon warehouses across the US

Consolidation efforts at Amazon have received high praise in recent weeks. Earlier this month, President Joe Biden endorsed his support for Amazon workers, saying: “Amazon, here we come.”

On Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. And Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., joined the ALU at a rally outside the LDJ5 ahead of the election. Sanders took pictures of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person in the world, in remarks at the rally.

Sanders told the audience: “I say to Jeff Bezos, who owns a $500 million yacht, Jeff, when you’re on your yacht, I want you to think about the workers on Staten Island and the staff. your members across this country. “They don’t want a $500 million yacht. They don’t want a $23 million mansion that you have in Washington, DC. They want affordable housing. They want to be able to quit. put out a few bucks to send their kids. College. They don’t want to be exploited and continue the huge amount of revenue going on here because of the horrible working conditions.”



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