Warehouse workers at an Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island have voted to join the upstart Amazon Labor Union, making it the first Amazon facility in the U.S. to unionize.
The no votes edged out the yes votes in the do-over election in Bessemer, Alabama, but more than 400 challenged ballots remain. A hearing will determine whether those ballots will be counted.
Last year, Alabama workers voted against forming the first unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S. Then, federal labor officials said Amazon unfairly influenced that election. Now, a re-vote begins.
The mailbox was a key reason why labor officials ruled to re-do a union election at Amazon's Alabama warehouse. For the re-vote, the mailbox got moved. The union wants it gone.
A federal labor official has ordered a revote in the biggest Amazon union election in the U.S. The agency found the company's anti-union tactics tainted the original vote that rejected unionizing.
A federal labor official found that Amazon's anti-union tactics may have tainted last spring's voting process sufficiently to scrap its results. Workers had rejected unionization more than 2-to-1.
Amazon avoided the prospect of a first unionized warehouse in America, where it's now the second-largest private employer. The vote in Alabama had prompted new interest in unions across the country.
The results will determine whether Amazon gets its first U.S. warehouse union. It's been dubbed one of the most consequential union elections in recent history.
Some 5,800 workers at the Bessemer facility will vote starting this week on joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, potentially making it Amazon's first union shop in the U.S.
If workers from Amazon's warehouse near Birmingham vote to unionize in the next two months, they would turn a new page not only for the company but for the region.
