Bid to create union at second Amazon site fails in New York

Workers at an Amazon facility in New York rejected a unionization campaign, according to a vote count Monday, one month after the group’s upset triumph at a neighboring warehouse.

Sixty-two percent of workers at the Staten Island facility voted against the union push, with 618 employees voting no and 380 in support, according to results released by US officials.

The election at LDJ5 followed on the heels of the upset win by the Amazon Labor Union on April 1 at the larger JFK8 Staten Island company site, which established the first Amazon union in the United States.

The April win stood as one of the biggest recent victories by organized labor, winning plaudits from President Joe Biden and other leading unions, some of which visited Staten Island ahead of the second vote.

But the union acknowledged a setback in the latest campaign.

“The count has finished. The election has concluded without the union being recognized,” Amazon Labor Union said on Twitter. “The organizing will continue at this facility and beyond. The fight has just begun.”

Amazon is also challenging the April victory by the union, saying representatives of the labor group intimidated workers and that US officials with the National Labor Relations Board were biased against the company.

An NLRB official set a hearing on the Amazon complaints for May 23 in Phoenix.

Amazon Labor has rejected the Amazon complaints as groundless, arguing the company is using stalling tactics to avoid negotiations on a contract.

© 2022 AFP