Amazon union workers won in New York — can they win across the country?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The first-ever union to successfully organize Amazon employees was the ALU. Christian Smalls, a fired worker motivated by what he viewed as poor treatment, rallied his co-workers through the process and in January 2022, got just enough votes to qualify for a formal election. The workers of Amazon's JFK8 warehouse voted to unionize on Friday.

It was a hard-won victory, coming after years of work, and labor activists are already hoping to apply the same tactics to the hundreds of thousands of Amazon warehouse workers across the rest of the country. The newly formed Amazon Labor Union is forcing Amazon to take a hard second look at working conditions in many of its fulfillment centers after the RWDSU stumbled in the election last year.

Early on, the ALU developed its own strategy. The organizers camped out near the warehouse to give out literature and answer questions about how much Amazon was spending on things like labor consultants and corporate salaries. When they had to shift course, they put the focus on just two warehouses, JFK8 and LDJ5 and used social media to raise awareness. They called every worker who was eligible to vote in the election.

Organizers say Amazon underestimated their resolve. The sergeant-at-arms of the ALU said in an interview that the company had a bad attitude towards him and his fellow organizers. He made references to how Amazon representatives called them inarticulate, which was cited in a lawsuit from the National Labor Relations Board.

The successful union drive in Staten Island was supported by the ALU, an independent labor union, and the unsuccessful drive in Alabama was supported by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The Amazon Labor Union is not affiliated with any established union.

Rebecca Givan, associate professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University, said that they definitely proved that an independent union.

The ALU will be able to keep making progress, according to Bryson. He trusts Chris Smalls so much that he has a heart of gold. We all sit down, and we listen to each other, no decision that you hear coming out of his mouth is just Chris.

It will be difficult to recreate the same approach that worked at JFK8 because the ALU founders were interested in expanding.

James Williams, Jr., general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), said that New York has a strong union tradition that many of the workers were familiar with.

They can challenge a company's anti-union rhetoric if they know someone who is in a union.

The ALU organizers were trying to clear up myths about unions. He asked the co-worker if they knew anything about unions. I know they killed Jimmy Hoffa, I was told.

In addition to three other Staten Island warehouses, ALU organizers say they have Amazon workers in more than a dozen states who want to organize as well. The ALU may have to change its tactics if it wants to reach workers in areas where unions are not well-established because Amazon has warehouses all over the country.

Even if the final chapters of the ALU are not written, we are likely to see more smaller organizations try to emulate it. She says that there are people who are politically aligned who want to organize getting jobs at places like Amazon or Starbucks to help start union campaigns.

She said that younger organizers have a different set of tools than their predecessors. She said workers on social media show they are pro-union and that is a powerful message to send.

The fight is just beginning for the ALU, it now has to begin negotiations with Amazon, a company well-known for its aversion to unions and its willingness to use union-busting tactics. Getting Amazon to sign a contract is arguably harder than the determination the ALU will bring to the next step.

They have to organize around that, and they have to be willing to strike. The ALU organizers have to fight just as hard for a contract as they did for an election.