Amazon and union workers attend rally outside the company building in Staten Island, N.Y. in April.
Photo:
Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg News
The press predicted a surge of Big Labor victories after an Amazon warehouse unionized last month, but the labor “tidal wave” has yet to claim a single island. A separate vote this week shows that unions still face long odds in organizing at Amazon and other private employers.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said Monday that employees at Amazon’s LDJ5 warehouse had rejected a union. The package-sorting center is on Staten Island—about a four-minute drive from Amazon’s JFK8 facility, which made a national splash when its workers approved a union last month. Employees at LDJ5 rejected the union by a vote of 62% to 38%.
The push to organize the sorting center was handled by the Amazon Labor Union, which triumphed at the first location. The group pitched its small size and focus as a contrast with Big Labor, keen to avoid the reputation for ineffectuality that has sped private unions’ decline. But workers in last week’s election expressed familiar doubts. The Journal reports that many turned down the union because they were “satisfied with their pay and benefits.”
It’s the latest setback for Amazon organizers, after employees at an Alabama warehouse rejected a national union last year in the company’s first major union vote. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union appealed that result, claiming a Postal Service mailbox at the…