Amazon workers in Staten Island have voted to form the company’s first unionized warehouse.
CNBC reports that approximately 8,325 workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center were eligible to vote on this decision. Of those, 2,654 voted in favor of joining the Amazon Labor Union, and 2,131 voted against. That puts the approval rating at roughly 55% of people who voted.
That’s a dramatic shift from previous unionization efforts. Warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama voted against unionizing in April 2021, although critics have said that effort failed in no small part due to Amazon’s efforts to discourage those workers from joining a union.
“We’re disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees,” Amazon said in a statement to Reuters. And it seems the company is going to fight to maintain the status quo.
“We’re evaluating our options,” Amazon said in a statement to CNBC, “including filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB that we and others (including the National Retail Federation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce) witnessed in this election.”
But this won’t be the end of Amazon’s unionization woes. Reuters says that workers in another Staten Island warehouse, LDJ5, will vote on whether or not they should unionize on April 25. It wouldn’t be a surprise if workers at other warehouses throughout the US end up following suit.
