Workers at the Staten Island warehouse for Amazon voted to unionize in the first major victory for organized labor against Amazon.
The vote was 2654 in favor to 2131 opposed — a win by about 10 percent. A little more than 50 percent of the 8,300 warehouse workers voted.
Another effort to unionize Amazon in Alabama has apparently failed, but some votes were contested and are still being counted. That effort was driven by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
This is one more indication that the pandemic has upended American labor as workers realize that with a loose labor market, they hold the whip hand in negotiations.
The surprising strength shown by unions in both locations most likely means that Amazon will face years of labor pressure from independent worker groups, large unions targeting the company and environmental and other progressive activists working with them. As a recent string of union victories at Starbucks has shown, wins at one location can provide encouragement at others.
Amazon hired voraciously over the past two years and now has 1.6 million employees globally. But it has been plagued by high turnover, and the pandemic gave employees a growing sense of power while fueling worries about workplace safety. The Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, was the subject of a New York Times investigation last year, which found that it was emblematic of the stresses in Amazon’s employment model.
“The pandemic has fundamentally changed the labor landscape,” said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University. “It’s just a question of whether unions can take advantage of the opportunity that transformation has opened up.”
If history is any guide, the unions will overplay their hand and, “existential threat” or not, fail to alter the dynamic between labor and management. Usually, companies under pressure from unions initiate their own reforms — raising pay, increasing benefits, and making the necessary changes to keep employees reasonably happy.
Related: Leftist Chickens Come Home to Roost for Amazon
Amazon may be in need of reform, but if they’re smart about it, they’ll do it without the help of organized labor.
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