Big wins for labor unions

The big news today is that an Amazon warehouse was finally unionized.

(AP) — Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to unionize on Friday, marking the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history and handing an unexpected win to a nascent group that fueled the union drive.

Votes were still being tabulated but union supporters secured a wide enough margin to give the fledgling Amazon Labor Union enough support to pull off a victory. The votes that were either voided or contested by either Amazon or the ALU did not appear to be enough to sway the outcome.

More than 8,300 eligible workers cast their ballots. Amazon provides the list of eligible workers to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees the process. Organizers say a high attrition rate may have shrunk that pool since the election was scheduled.

The victory was an uphill battle for the independent group, made up of former and current workers who lacked official backing from an established union and were out-gunned by the deep-pocketed retail giant.

Chris Smalls is the David v. Goliath hero here.
The most impressive aspects was that this was done without an established union, without money, and without any visible political support.
At the same time the Amazon warehouse in Alabama was having a revote, which the NLRB forced after Amazon engaged in shady practices during the first vote.

Union supporters are narrowly trailing opponents in a union election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, the National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday. But the count was far closer than a vote at the same warehouse last year, when workers rejected the union by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.

The union had 875 yes votes versus 993 no votes, but the more than 400 challenged ballots are sufficient to potentially affect the outcome.

There's still some hope here because Amazon traditionally does the bulk of the challenges.

Meanwhile, another anti-union giant, Starbucks, continues to lose union elections.

The union organizing Starbucks workers extended its winning streak on Friday, adding an eighth store to the list of unionized locations.

Employees at the store in Mesa, Arizona, voted to join Workers United by a count of 11 to 3, according to a vote tally conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. That brings the union’s success tally to five stores in the Buffalo area, two in Mesa and one in Starbucks’ hometown of Seattle.

The coffee chain has roughly 9,000 corporate-owned stores around the country, of which those eight are the first to unionize. The newly organized shops represent a tiny fraction of Starbucks’ overall workforce, but the union has petitioned for elections at 150 stores in 27 states, making it almost certain more workers will join.

It's hard not to notice a trend going on here.
Big union drives by national unions frequently lose.
But small, grassroots union drives, driven by local employees, are winning big.

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When he felt the company wasn’t taking the necessary precautions to keep his coworkers safe as COVID rampaged through New York City, he helped stage a rally outside of JFK8 to protest the unsafe conditions. The company responded by firing him, claiming it was for violating social-distancing rules. New York State Attorney Tish James has charged Amazon with unlawfully firing Chris.

After Amazon fired Chris, Vice obtained a memo from the S-Team (the highest-level Amazon executives) relating to a meeting the team held about the situation. In that meeting, at which Jeff Bezos was present, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky said Chris was “not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position.” Chris has been focused on making Amazon regret that ever since.

In April of this year, Chris helped launch an independent union organizing effort.

Talk about underestimating a guy.

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snoopydawg's picture

It’s past time for Amazon to start paying its workers a living wage and to make their warehouses safe for people to work in. The labor board and OSHA have been awol long enough.

Also Amazon spent $4.3 million last year on keeping unions out.

An update on your Will Smith essay.

I wonder if Will had used his fist would they then consider it an assault?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@snoopydawg https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/tra0qe/so_pfizer_biontech...

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

of neoliberal Capitalism then you had better have unions that actually represent the interests of the workers. In fact it's clearly in the interest of the oligarchs to have a stable society with clear rules about the use of labor. Furthermore, when the labor market is virtually extended to cheap overseas countries with no protection of labor, there needs to be an import tax to level the playing field. On the other hand, designing an economic system that incorporates economic justice directly is an even better idea. But if the oligarchs want to keep their Mickey Mouse system they better insist on representation of the interests of the workers. Otherwise your economic system is not worth keeping.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

snoopydawg's picture

@The Wizard

The oligarchs have bought the heads of most unions. Randi Weingarten sells out the teachers more than she backs them up. Same for the car union leaders and nurses. Democrats abandoned unions during Clinton’s tenure and only pay lip service to them now. But it’s a lot of lip so people believe what they tell them they will do if only they get a big enough majority.

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6 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

orlbucfan's picture

@snoopydawg before Clinton. Great news!! Smile Regarding the Will Smith/Chris Rock deal, I saw it happened. Rock is very lucky his skin is dark. Smith popped him a good one. It would be a bruise on a lighter skinned person, for sure. Talk about stupidity! Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Hard to not see Amazon coming up with some creative capitalist poison pill. If not
I figure the next step is to negotiate a compensation package. Along with wages, hours and training they will negotiate health care, retirement, child care, time off and other benefits.

If all Americans already had decent programs for health care, retirement, child care, unemployment and education Union workers could focus on wages, hours, training and safety. Those benefits for all citizens would be paid for by general taxation, while the benefits for Amazon workers will be passed on to the consumer, protecting Bezos fortune and power. People without union protection will pay more for others to have a better life with small chance to recoup those costs from their work. I can't see every job being unionized.

I am wary of this because it creates another, favored class of worker, and another fracture aiding the class war, and capitalists win. Daddy Warbucks gets to increase prices and blame the unions while singing (loudly and often )hosannas about pre union days.

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