NEW YORK—Building rank-and-file union participation is at the top of the to-do list for the new leadership of the Amazon Labor Union–International Brotherhood of Teamsters. They vow to introduce the steward system on the warehouse floors and eliminate the “toxic environment that discourages workers from getting involved,” Connor Spence, newly elected president of the ALU-IBT Local 1, said.
In fighting for their first contract, “There is no way forward other than getting the majority of Amazon workers ready to fight to bring Amazon to the bargaining table,” Justine Medina, warehouse worker and member of the new ALU-IBT Constitution Committee, told People’s World.
The JFK8 facility, just outside New York City on Staten Island, is one of the most profitable warehouses in the country. Workers there face the risk of serious injury at nearly any moment. Multiple ambulances can be seen visiting the warehouse to retrieve ailing workers each shift.
Low wages, long hours without breaks, limited access to restrooms, lifting boxes over 50 lbs., and constant increases in the pace of work push workers past the point of physical and mental exhaustion. Unjustified firings, lack of protection against occupational injuries, management forcing pregnant employees to perform physical labor against medical advice, and securing guaranteed water and restroom breaks are among other key issues for workers.
All 15 ALU Reform Caucus slate candidates—four candidates for the union’s Executive Board, and 11 for the union’s Constitution Committee—won the ALU-IBT officer elections.
As the new leadership takes office, the workforce faces escalating obstruction from Amazon management. On July 17, Amazon’s “Prime Day,” as Amazon workers across the country demonstrated at Amazon facilities, Spence and Teamster supporters were arrested while picketing in support of strikers at JFK8. Amazon management called the police on workers exercising their protected labor rights on public property. The ALU cited this as one of many examples of Amazon’s bad faith engagement with union negotiations.
In June, the ALU voted to affiliate with the Teamsters. The merger brings not only financial stability but the broad experience and infrastructure of organized warehouse workers and drivers across the nation to the ALU-IBT, while still giving it a wide degree of independence. “We know full well that bringing Amazon to the table is a national fight, and JFK8 can’t do it alone. We’re beyond excited for this fresh start [with the Teamsters],” said Spence.
The ALU first won their watershed union election to organize 8,000 workers at the Amazon fulfillment center JFK8 on Staten Island in 2022. JFK8 is still the only unionized Amazon facility in the U.S. The ALU’s effort has been closely watched by labor organizers across the country as a model for ongoing efforts to unionize the hundreds of Amazon facilities across the nation.
“Active participation and engagement of the rank-and-file membership in the union is how we will force Amazon to negotiate with us, and that is only achieved through democratic worker organization,” Sultana Hossain, newly elected Recording Secretary for the ALU-IBT and veteran worker at JFK8, told People’s World.
“The role of union leadership is to help each and every worker recognize their own power to transform their working conditions and to challenge Amazon’s extreme exploitation of their labor.”
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