On Staten Island, Amazon workers voted to unionize as a sort of rebuke of the company’s treatment of it’s employees. Organizing this union wasn’t something that many people believed was possible. Yet, without the support of National labor organizations they still took on one of the most powerful organizations in the world. In the end, their victory was miraculous. U.S Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported the Amazon workers’ desire to unionize and rallied alongside them. Ocasio-Cortez called it “incredible and remarkable.”

Organizers claim that they wish to replicate this success in other Amazon warehouses as well, and Ocasio-Cortez says “it’s just the beginning”.  Christian Smalls is a Union Organizer who helped lead the campaign for the JFK8 warehouse. He said his team wished to inspire unionization at other major corporations. Bernie Sanders spoke to the Amazon workers and employees as well alongside Ocasio-Cortez.

Amazon publicly supported their workers’ and employees’ rights to join a union. However, they spend $5 million attempting to stop the union from being organized previously. Just on the 25th of April, an announcement was published that over 1,500 workers at an Amazon storing center on Staten Island will be eligible to vote in another election just that next week. A rally formed outside of the facility last week on Sunday and Madeline Wesley, the treasurer of the Amazon Labor Union, said a union was necessary because “part-time workers, whom the facility relies on heavily, could not get enough hours to support themselves.”
If the workers at the smaller facility known at LDJ5 vote to unionize, they will join the Amazon Labor union. The same independent and worker-led union that succeeded first.

Sources:

Gothamist.com—“Heavy hitters join rally for Amazon workers ahead of second Staten Island warehouse’s union election.”

Nytimes.com—“Union vote begins at another Amazon facility on Staten Island”