- After an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island became the first in the company's history to successfully vote to unionize, workers across the country have attempted to do the same.
- Experts say that most successful union votes happen in labor-friendly states, like New York, rather than in the South.
- Black organizers told Insider it's more difficult to petition for a union in the South, where social services, like unemployment, are harder to access.
In April, an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island became the first in the company's history to successfully vote to unionize. This week, another sorting center on Staten Island will try to replicate their success. If the roughly 1,500 workers at the LDJ5 warehouse vote to unionize, they will still be only the second union in the company in the United States.
"It's not a coincidence that the Amazon Union victory happened in New York," State University of New York Labor Studies Professor Joel Suarez told Insider. "That is a state with high union density with a strong labor legacy … That sort of tradition of labor solidarity really [does] play a role in where you see some of these battles won."
The first successful union at warehouse JFK8 was led in part by Chris Smalls, a 33-year-old Black man from New Jersey who was fired from Amazon in 2020 after organizing a walk-out over a lack of health protocols in its facilities.
That Staten Island warehouse was not the first to attempt a union vote, they were just the first to be victorious. Throughout history, Black workers who have led unionization efforts have faced great consequences and vicious attacks. However, the torment has been even worse in the South, and the stakes even higher.
Experts say that Black workers in the South face more consequences when they choose to organize.
Amazon has faced many union votes over its 27 years, but since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a heightened sense of urgency among workers seeking stronger health protocols. Workers have said that the company has not been responsive to demands for deep cleanings or paid sick days.
The first Amazon warehouse to take up a union vote in the past seven years was in Bessemer, Alabama, under the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. That was in April of 2021. Employees overwhelmingly voted against the union by a more than 2-to-1 margin. However, later that year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered a new union election at the Bessemer location after determining that Amazon illegally influenced the results of the first election. The NLRB found that Amazon conducted mandatory meetings and installed a mailbox outside the warehouse where they tried to gauge employee support for the union. The NLRB also found that Amazon spent millions of dollars on anti-union consultants, placed signs in warehouse bathrooms, and sent text messages to workers multiple times a week.
The Bessemer warehouse is largely composed of Black women, and a co-court of Black workers spearheaded the unionization effort. Bessemer itself boasts a population that is 72% Black.
Suarez said there are several additional factors that likely influenced the workers in Bessemer to vote against the union. The first, he said, is history.
Throughout history, Black workers have faced attacks or threats when trying to organize.
When the Fair Labor Standards Act was introduced, creating a federal minimum wage in 1938, Black Americans, who mainly worked domestic and agricultural jobs, were left out.
In the early 20th century, a high percentage of Black workers in the South were sharecroppers— an arrangement between a landowner and worker that allowed them to farm the land in exchange for a share of the crop. However, Black sharecroppers were often saddled with high debt and only received a small fraction of the profits, cementing them to a perpetual state of poverty.
In 1919, hundreds of Black sharecroppers in Elaine, Arkansas, were slaughtered by white farmers for attempting to form a union in what's known now as the Elaine Massacre. Across the South, other Black workers were also routinely lynched or threatened if they attempted to organize or demanded higher wages.
That history, coupled with a lack of social services and unemployment benefits in Southern states, makes the stakes much higher for low-wage Black workers, Suarez said.
If workers can lock down a job at Amazon for $15 to $20 an hour with healthcare benefits, Suarez said they don't want to lose that because the only other option is unemployment or poverty.
In Alabama, for example, it's challenging to qualify for unemployment benefits, and the maximum a worker can get is $275 a week. In comparison, New York grants workers up to $500 a week for 26 weeks if they have worked in the state in the last 18 months.
"If you lose your job, there's not generous unemployment benefits or other kinds of benefits that you would find to be, say, in a state like Massachusetts or New York," Suarez said.
A Black union organizer said, "It's scarier to petition for a union in the South."
Nikki Taylor was a shift supervisor at a Memphis Starbucks and the lead union organizer before the company fired her in February. She had been with the company for a little over two years.
Taylor is infamously a part of the Memphis 7, the seven Starbucks employees that were fired illegally, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Of the seven fired, four were workers of color.
As a Black woman leading the organizing effort, Taylor told Insider she knew the path to unionization would be difficult. She still forged ahead.
Taylor was inspired after watching the first Starbucks store unionize in Buffalo, New York. She caught COVID-19 at work last year and ultimately brought it home to her 8-year-old daughter. That's when she realized wanted to fight for Starbucks to do more to keep workers safe.
"I think it's scarier to petition for a union in the South," Taylor said. "We're an at-will state. They could probably fire you for anything. they can walk up to you, and you can breathe wrong, and they can fire you."
So far, there have been 31 successful union votes at Starbucks, 12 of which have been in New York. Only one has been in the South, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Taylor said she made only $16.40 an hour, even in a middle management position. She said that income wouldn't allow her to save and build the future she wanted for her daughter. After she was terminated from her position at Starbucks, she was unable to qualify for unemployment.
Taylor acknowledges that a lot of workers at her Starbucks location are afraid of publicly supporting the union in fear of retaliation from Starbucks. "Workers are pushing past that and joining that union anyway, which I'm proud of," Taylor said. "Since we were terminated and since we still fought and we had that courage, it's causing them to have that same courage. So just that part, I guess, makes me happy."
The union vote for their store is on April 25th. They are working with the NLRB to get reinstated or for a settlement from Starbucks.