After Historic Win, Amazon Workers At Another NYC Warehouse Reject Unionization

Amazon workers in New York voted against joining the Amazon Labor Union on Monday, a month after the trade union group won a separate election to create its first-ever unionized warehouse.

Employees from LDJ5 warehouse in Staten Island voted against the ALU, with the majority 618 declining union representation versus 380 in favor of it. The results still need to be approved by America's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Christian Smalls, president of the ALU, said he was "proud of the worker/organizers of LDJ5" despite the election's outcome. "Our leads should be extremely proud to have given their coworkers a right to join a union. [ALU] will continue to organize and so should all of you," he tweeted. 

Seth Goldstein, an attorney representing the union group, said it will "contest the election" and claimed Amazon had "violated laboratory conditions in this election with mandatory anti-union meetings," in a statement to Vice.

"We're glad that our team at LDJ5 were able to have their voices heard," Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, told NPR. "We look forward to continuing to work directly together as we strive to make every day better for our employees."

Amazon and the ALU were not immediately available for comment. 

The defeat comes after a historic win for the union. Workers at a separate NYC warehouse – JFK8, in the same complex as LDJ5 – voted in favor of joining the union just last month. It was the first-ever Amazon warehouse to successfully unionize. That victory, however, is being challenged by the e-commerce giant.

Company officials claimed ALU organizers intimidated workers into voting for the union, among other complaints in an NLRB filing [PDF]. Cornele Overstreet, a regional NLRB director in Phoenix, said in a separate filing that Amazon's claims "could be grounds for overturning the election." The case has been transferred from the NLRB's Brooklyn, New York office to Phoenix, Arizona. 

Results for another union vote, held at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, last month, have yet to be finalized. ®