Amazon warehouse staff on Staten Island refile union petition

A labor group searching for to prepare Amazon warehouse staff on New York’s Staten Island has refiled a union petition with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, the company confirmed Wednesday.

The group, often called the Amazon Labor Union, first filed its request for a union vote in late October with signatures from greater than 2,000 workers. However final month the petition was withdrawn after the NLRB decided they wanted wider help to spur a vote.

NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado confirmed the Amazon Labor Union is within the strategy of submitting the paperwork to file for a union election. The group has submitted the preliminary petition to kick off that course of, however has but to file two remaining paperwork, together with a exhibiting of curiosity, which signifies it has met the required threshold for worker signatures, the NLRB mentioned.

The group, led by former Amazon worker Christian Smalls, is searching for to prepare staff at 4 Amazon warehouses within the New York Metropolis borough.

The NLRB requires that workers gather signatures from a minimum of 30% of staff within the potential bargaining unit to ensure that a union petition to be granted approval. The Staten Island warehouses make use of roughly 5,500 staff, in accordance with Bloomberg.

Amazon Labor Union mentioned in a launch Wednesday that it has “signed up 1000’s of Staten Island Amazon warehouse staff who desire a union.”

The union marketing campaign has primarily been targeted at one in every of Amazon’s largest warehouses on Staten Island, referred to as JFK8. Smalls, a former Amazon employee who was fired after he organized a protest on the facility, and different staff have had a tent arrange outdoors JFK8 for the previous a number of months, providing meals and marketing campaign supplies in a recruitment marketing campaign.

The group’s “lunchtime walkout” on Wednesday was organized to induce Amazon to “instantly acknowledge the union,” it mentioned within the launch. As well as, the group has referred to as for greater wages, safer working situations, longer breaks and improved advantages, akin to enhanced medical go away choices and extra paid time without work.

Ought to the NLRB approve the group’s request for a union vote, it will kick off the second such in lower than a yr. In April, a unionization drive at one in every of Amazon’s Alabama warehouses was defeated.

That labor battle is not over. Late final month, the NLRB licensed a brand new union election on the Bessemer, Ala,, facility after discovering that Amazon illegally interfered within the vote.

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