Union effort tough at Amazon
Contrast to success at Starbucks due partly to sheer scale of tech giant
Roughly six weeks after successful union votes at two Buffalo, New York-area Starbucks stores in December, workers had filed paperwork to hold union elections in at least 20 other Starbucks locations nationwide.
By contrast, since the Amazon Labor Union’s victory last month in a vote at a huge warehouse on Staten Island, workers at just one other Amazon facility have filed for a union election — with an obscure union with a checkered past — before promptly withdrawing their petition.
The difference may come as a surprise to those who believed that organizing at Amazon might follow the explosive pattern witnessed at Starbucks, where workers at more than 250 stores have filed for elections and the union has prevailed at a vast majority of the locations that have voted.
Christian Smalls, president of the independent Amazon Labor Union, told NPR shortly after the victory that his group had heard from workers in 50 other Amazon facilities, adding, “Just like the Starbucks movement, we want to spread like wildfire across the nation.”
The two campaigns share some features; most notably, both are largely overseen by workers rather than professional organizers. And the Amazon Labor Union has made more headway at Amazon than most experts expected, and more than any established union.
But unionizing workers at Amazon was always likely to be a longer, messier slog given the scale of its facilities and the nature of the workplace. “Amazon is so much harder a nut to crack,” John Logan, a labor studies professor at San Francisco State University, said by email. The union recently lost a vote at a smaller warehouse on Staten Island.
To win, a union must get the backing of more than 50 percent of the workers who cast a vote. That means 15 or 20 pro-union workers can ensure victory in a typical Starbucks store — a level of support that can be summoned in hours or days. At Amazon warehouses, a union frequently would have to win hundreds or thousands of votes.
Organizers for the Amazon Labor Union spent hundreds of hours talking with coworkers inside the warehouse during breaks, after work and on days off. They held cookouts at a bus stop outside the warehouse and communicated with hundreds of colleagues through Whatsapp groups.
Brian Denning, who leads an Amazon organizing campaign sponsored by the Democratic Socialists of America chapter in Portland, Oregon, said his group had received six or seven inquiries a week from Amazon workers and contractors after the Staten Island victory, versus one or two a week beforehand.
But Denning, a former Amazon warehouse employee who tells workers that they are the ones who must lead a union campaign, said that many did not realize how much effort unionizing required, and that some became discouraged once he conferred with them.
“We get people saying, ‘How do we get an ALU situation here? How do we do that like they did?’” Denning said. “I don’t want to scare them away. But I can’t lie to workers. This is what it is. It’s not for everyone.”
At Starbucks, employees work together in a relatively small space, sometimes without a manager present to supervise them directly for hours at a time. This allows them to openly discuss concerns about pay and working conditions and the merits of a union.
At Amazon, the warehouses are cavernous, and workers are often more isolated and more closely supervised, especially during an organizing campaign.
“What they would do is strategically separate me from everyone in my department,” said Derrick Palmer, an Amazon employee on Staten Island who is one of the union’s vice presidents. “If they see me interacting with that person, they would move them to a different station.”
Asked about the allegation, Amazon said it assigned employees to workstations and tasks based on operational needs.
Both companies have accused the unions of their own unfair tactics, including intimidating workers and inciting hostile confrontations.
Organizing drivers is an even greater challenge, partly because they are officially employed by contractors that Amazon hires, though labor organizers say they would like to pressure the company to address drivers’ concerns.