Amazon workers at a processing facility on Staten Island, New York, won a landmark vote Friday to form the e-commerce giant’s first collective bargaining unit.
With 2,654 votes in favor and 2,131 against, the overwhelming victory will allow more than 8,000 workers at the facility to join the Amazon Labor Union. The ALU was formed last year by Chris Smalls, a process assistant at the warehouse that it was fired in March 2020 to organize protests over Amazon’s COVID-19 protocols.
“Amazon wanted me to face all the union efforts against them … well, that’s it!” Smalls wrote on Twitter shortly before the vote count was over. “We worked, we had fun and we made history.”
According to the National Labor Relations Board, there were 8,325 voting workers at the facility. Both sides contested 67 ballots, which is not enough to affect the outcome. The NLRB said the union and Amazon now have seven days to challenge the final result.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The victory is expected to resonate across the country, as labor activists have long struggled to unionize Amazon workers.
The ALU’s list of demands for Amazon calls for immediate changes to health and safety policies, as well as higher wages, more promotions, and better working conditions. The union is calling on Amazon to increase its members’ pay by 7.5% to match inflation, restore 20-minute breaks and provide shuttle service to workers.
The victory of the union comes the day after the end of the counting of votes the second union election at the Amazon Bessemer Warehouse, Alabama. About 52% of workers voted against unionization in those elections, but a large number of contested ballots could affect the outcome.
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