(New York) Employees at an Amazon warehouse in New York, who want to succeed in forming a union after an attempt in Alabama failed, announced on Monday that they had taken the first step outside the agency in responsible for labor law, which the trade giant has said to doubt.
“We already have more than 2000 signatures and this is only the beginning,” announced the leader of the movement, baptized Amazon Labor Union (ALU, “union of Amazon workers”), Christian Smalls, leaving the Federal labor law agency (National Labor Relations Board, NLRB), Brooklyn.
The ALU lawyer, Eric Milner, for his part assured that the minimum number of signatures required among the employees of this warehouse on Staten Island, or 30%, had been reached. According to him, a hearing has been set for November 15 by the NRLB, to discuss the procedure, but by then, the trade giant has the obligation to inform the employees of the warehouse that the file has been validated. .
“We doubt that a sufficient number of legitimate employee signatures has been obtained to justify an election,” responded, in a statement, an Amazon spokesperson, Kelly Nantel.
Dressed in red overalls and wearing the mask of the characters from the Netflix series over his head Casa de papel, Christian Smalls, himself dismissed from Amazon a few months ago, assured that “the world is watching us […] New York is a city of unions, and we are going to prove it ”. Behind him stood a caricature of the former CEO of the group, Jeff Bezos.
To win in a future vote, more than half of the employees of the New York warehouse will have to vote in favor of the creation of a union. Which would be a first for Amazon in the United States.
Last April, in a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, despite the mobilization of activists and political figures to the top of the state, the no had won.
“If there is an election, we want the voices of our employees to be heard and we look forward to it. Our goal remains to listen directly to our employees and continuously improve on their behalf, ”said the Amazon spokesperson.