Folks arrive for work on the Amazon distribution middle within the Staten Island borough of New York on Oct. 25. The Nationwide Labor Relations Board is confirming {that a} group of Amazon warehouse staff in Staten Island has withdrawn its petition to carry a vote to unionize.
Craig Ruttle/AP
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Craig Ruttle/AP
Folks arrive for work on the Amazon distribution middle within the Staten Island borough of New York on Oct. 25. The Nationwide Labor Relations Board is confirming {that a} group of Amazon warehouse staff in Staten Island has withdrawn its petition to carry a vote to unionize.
Craig Ruttle/AP
NEW YORK — The Nationwide Labor Relations Board has confirmed {that a} group of Amazon staff in Staten Island, New York has withdrawn its petition to carry a vote to unionize.
The transfer comes lower than two weeks earlier than the labor board was anticipated to carry a listening to to find out whether or not there was adequate curiosity to type a union on the Amazon distribution middle.
NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado declined to elaborate the rationale for the pullback. However she famous staff can refile a petition.
Union organizers had mentioned in late October that it delivered greater than 2,000 signed union-support playing cards to the NLRB’s Brooklyn workplace after launching the trouble in April. That is a serious step in authorizing a vote that might arrange the primary union on the nation’s largest on-line retailer.
As a part of its petition to carry a vote, organizers should submit signatures from not less than 30% of the roughly 5,500 workers who the union says work at 4 adjoining Amazon amenities that it seeks to characterize underneath collective bargaining.
That is the second unionizing try prior to now yr at Amazon. Staff in Alabama resoundingly defeated an try earlier this yr, however organizers there are asking federal officers for a do-over. The Retail, Wholesale and Division Retailer Union is main the trouble in Alabama.
The union drive in New York Metropolis is working with out the assistance of a nationwide sponsor and is being spearheaded by a former Amazon worker, Christian Smalls. He mentioned he was fired simply hours after he organized a walkout final yr to protest working circumstances on the outset of the pandemic. Smalls could not be reached instantly for remark.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel mentioned in an emailed assertion that “our focus stays on listening on to our workers and constantly bettering on their behalf.”
