By a vote of 2654-2131 in favor, workers at a Staten Island Amazon Warehouse officially formed the first American labor union in the ecommerce juggernaut’s history, potentially ending an ugly chapter in the company’s long history of worker exploitation and opening the door for other Amazon employees around the country to continue the unionization push.
Friday’s vote at the JFK8 warehouse, New York City’s sole Amazon fulfillment center, comes as a similar effort to unionize a Bessemer, Alabama, facility looks likely to fail in what would be a second defeat for labor organizers at that site. The Bessemer count is currently narrow enough that it could be some time before all the ballots are fully tabulated and ratified there, though.
