The National Labor Relations Board has approved a union election at a second Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, opening a new front in the growing challenges to the company’s labor model.
The agency informed the company on Wednesday that the new Amazon Labor Union on Staten Island had collected enough signatures to prove sufficient interest in holding an election at a warehouse known as LDJ5, said Christian Smalls, a former Amazon employee who is leading the organizing effort there.
Amazon is already facing an in-person union vote from March 25 to 30 at JFK8, a massive neighboring warehouse, as well as an election at another company warehouse this month in Bessemer, Ala., outside Birmingham. Mr. Smalls said the logistics of the latest Staten Island voting would be hashed out at a hearing at the agency on March 14.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the company was looking “forward to having our employees’ voices heard.” She added that the company was focused “on working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work.”
Last year, workers at the Alabama warehouse voted against joining a union, but the labor agency threw out the result after finding Amazon had improperly interfered with the election.
In a message sent to employees at the LDJ5 warehouse on Wednesday shortly after the agency’s decision, Amazon sought to persuade workers against siding with the fledgling union. The union “will continue to promise you things like better pay and benefits just to get your support,” but “you could end up with the same, more or less than what you have now” while paying union dues, the message said.
Mr. Smalls said the notion that workers would end up with less as a result of joining the union was a “blatant lie” and was not effective. “We definitely know Amazon is going to spread anti-union propaganda, but that’s to be expected,” he said.
