An Amazon warehouse in New York has successfully voted to unionize, the first of its kind

Leaders of the Amazon Staten Island union petition hold up paper labor forms — Chris Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, with supporters at a Staten Island, New York, warehouse in October.
Craig Ruttle/AP Photo

Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, have voted to form a union.
It is the first Amazon warehouse in the country to successfully unionize.
Results of another union vote at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama remain too close to call.

Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island are the first in the company's history to successfully form a union, a labor organizing milestone and a major blow to Amazon's efforts to keep unions out of its facilities.

The National Labor Relations Board concluded its counting of votes on Friday morning, with a majority of workers voting to join the upstart Amazon Labor Union, founded last year by former Amazon employee Christian Smalls.

The Amazon Labor Union won with 2654 votes for, versus 2131 against. A union needs a simple majority to win an election with the NLRB.

The union's success, in the Staten Island borough of New York, is likely to propel a cascade of organizing at other Amazon warehouses and retailers. The past several months have seen union victories at companies that some labor leaders previously thought were immune to unionization, such as Starbucks, where nearly 200 branches have filed to unionize. Workers at another Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, also organized by the Amazon Labor Union, will vote on a union in the next few weeks.

The Amazon Labor Union has overcome long odds. Winning a union on the first attempt at a major company is almost unheard of. Amazon has successfully kept unions out of its facilities for decades. Until now, the company has found success with an anti-union playbook that by turns intimidates and woos workers, while churning through employees at such a pace that nascent organizing efforts have had little time to take hold.

It's even rarer for workers to back an independent union, which tend to lack the financial backing and legal expertise of more established unions, according to labor scholars.

An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

The Amazon Labor Union raised about $100,000 in two GoFundMe campaigns, and relied on other unions for legal advice, office space and volunteers. By the end of the union drive, the union was operating on a week-to-week budget, Smalls told The City.

Amazon, by contrast, has waged a lengthy and expensive anti-union campaign. The ecommerce behemoth spent $4.3 million last year trying to quash union votes in Staten Island and in Bessemer, Alabama, according to filings with the Department of Labor, previously reported by HuffPost. Workers at the warehouse in Bessemer overwhelmingly voted to reject a union last year, but the NLRB ordered a new election in November, ruling that Amazon illegally influenced the vote. Those workers, who have already cast their votes for this second election, are attempting to organize with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. As of Friday morning, the vote tally there was too close to call.

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