Amazon Labor Union Loses Election at Warehouse Near Albany

Christian Smalls, the union’s president, “is very much in favor of trying to create opportunities for as many workers as possible to vote,” said Cassio Mendoza, a JFK8 worker and the union’s communications director. At the same time, the union has felt pressure to demonstrate progress to workers in Staten Island, and has recently stepped up its internal organizing there after months of minimal public activity.

Mr. Smalls did not respond to a request for comment, but said on Twitter before the vote count Tuesday morning that he was proud of the workers at the warehouse regardless of the outcome, adding, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

The result on Tuesday from the ALB1 warehouse in Castleton-on-Hudson, N.Y., about 10 miles south of Albany, may add to the case for the union to focus primarily on JFK8.

About 80 percent of the union’s budget of more than half a million dollars has been focused on Staten Island, union officials have said. The rest has been set aside for expansion, including efforts at ALB1 and at a facility in Southern California that submitted a petition for an election last week.

Even before the ballots were tallied on Tuesday, the union expressed concern that Amazon improperly interfered with the vote, potentially laying the groundwork for a legal objection to the results.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/18/technology/amazon-labor-union-alb1.html