Amazon warehouse employees at a location in North Carolina will cast their votes next month about whether to join a union, in preparation for the company’s most recent labour dispute.
TakeAway Points:
- Next month, Amazon employees at a North Carolina warehouse will cast their votes on whether to form a union.
- The warehouse would just be the second Amazon location in the United States to unionise if the election is successful.
- For the previous three years, workshops have been organised by Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment.
Amazon workers in North Carolina to vote
Workers at the Garner, North Carolina, facility will cast their ballots from Feb. 10 to Feb. 15, according to a Tuesday post on X by Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment, the group seeking to organize staffers. An NLRB spokesperson confirmed an in-person election will be held on those dates at the site, which employs about 4,300 workers.
Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said in a statement: “We’ve always said that we want our employees to have their voices heard, and we hope and expect this process allows for that. We believe our employees favor opportunities to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team.”
Known as CAUSE, the grassroots group led by current and former employees has been working to organize Amazon employees at the warehouse, which is located in a suburb about 10 miles south of Raleigh, for the past three years.
If the election is successful, the warehouse, known as RDU1, would be only the second Amazon site in the U.S. to unionize. Workers at Amazon’s largest warehouse in New York City voted to join the Amazon Labor Union in 2022, but the group struggled to negotiate a contract with Amazon, and last June, the ALU voted to affiliate with the Teamsters.
Challenges to unionize
A handful of union elections were held at Amazon warehouses in the U.S. in recent years but employees have either rejected unionization or the results continue to be disputed in lengthy court battles. Last November, a federal labor judge ordered a third rerun election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, after ruling the company improperly interfered in the vote.
CAUSE filed for a union election last month, saying in a press release that 30% of workers at the North Carolina site signed union authorization cards, which is the necessary threshold to trigger an NLRB vote. Organizers are seeking to boost wages and improve working conditions.
Hards said RDU1 has a “strong safety record” that exceeds other warehouse employers. Employees at the site have a starting pay of $18.50 an hour, which is more than double North Carolina’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, she added.
The union filing comes after Amazon delivery and warehouse workers went on strike at nine facilities last month to push the company to come to the bargaining table, according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents the employees. The action was intended to snarl Amazon’s operations during the busiest holiday shopping period of the year, referred to as peak season. Hards said the strike didn’t impact deliveries.
