The April 2022 election results at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island were legitimate, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said in a historic decision last week.
The JFK8 vote by warehouse workers, who chose to be represented by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), was done properly and Amazon should work with the ALU to determine workers’ concerns, the decision stated.
During the April 2022 vote, 2,654 workers voted for ALU representation and 2,131 voted against it, the NLRB said.
Amazon had been trying to get the ALU’s authorization overturned. The company claimed ALU organizers––and, in particular, union president Christian Smalls––intimidated workers with social media posts about the union vote and camera crews who, when filming employees voting, might have been seen to be surveilling them.
In the NLRB’s decision on the case, they quote Amazon as stating that “On March 25, Petitioner’s President Christian Smalls posted to his social media accounts a video of himself standing outside the voting area over 20 minutes after voting began and after he had told certain employees that the Petitioner would know how they voted. Employees viewing a video of the Petitioner’s President appearing to stand outside the polling area while the polls were open reasonably tended to coerce and intimidate voters and potential voters and lead them to believe that the Petitioner and Mr. Smalls was or would surveil them. Mr. Smalls’ social media post also reasonably tended to create the impression with voters that the Board supported Petitioner in the election, as it failed to properly police and/or took no actions to remove him from the ‘no-electioneering zone’ established by the Board.”
But Cornele A. Overstreet, the NLRB director of Region 28, wrote that the board’s decision found that “Smalls did not have a ‘ubiquitous presence’ around the polls” and the board did not favor the union prior to the vote.
Overstreet said that all of Amazon’s objections to the ALU should be dismissed.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said: “We knew it was unlikely that the NLRB Regional Office would rule against itself and intend to appeal. As we’ve said since the beginning, we don’t believe this election process was fair, legitimate, or representative of the majority of what our team wants.”
The e-commerce giant claims “we showed throughout the hearing, through dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pages of documents, that the Region and ALU improperly suppressed and influenced the vote.”
In a statement, the ALU said it is now calling on the company to begin contract negotiations.
“ALU has been certified as the exclusive representative of all employees at the JFK8 location,” said Christian Smalls. “Amazon doesn’t have to like that, but they have to honor that fact. Another fact: Sitting down at the bargaining table will make Amazon a better employer.”