Workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York have taken to building a union, six months after a similar attempt in Alabama failed, and are already accusing the e-commerce giant of doing everything to dissuade their colleagues.
At this stage, in the United States, no Amazon sorting and logistics center has succeeded in creating a union.
Read alsoAmazon employees reject the creation of a union
"
Since our campaign (to collect signatures) began, Amazon has wasted no time in implementing anti-unionization tactics
," said the association called ALU, for Amazon Labor Union on Thursday. (“
Amazon Workers Union
”).
“
We have faced the same strategies employed in Bessemer, Alabama, such as posters in the toilets or external consultants, specialists in the fight against unions, who come to the workplace and divide employees,
” he said. 'ALU in a press release.
Last April, at the end of long months of campaigning under pressure, the no to unionization had largely won in an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer.
Despite the mobilization of activists and political figures to the top of the state, barely more than 2,500 employees had voted, out of the 5,900 called to the polls.
In August, an official at the US Labor Law Agency (NLRB) "
determined that Amazon had violated labor law
" and recommended that a new vote be held in Alabama, according to union RWDSU , who had organized this attempt.
Higher wages and job security,
Amazon did not immediately respond to an AFP solicitation on Thursday.
In April, the group brushed
aside
accusations of intimidation, and ensured that its employees had "
heard many more anti-Amazon messages from the union, elected officials and the media than from us
."
The ALU has planned to submit its file, with the 2,000 favorable signatures collected, to the NLRB on October 25.
If approved, a vote will be held for Amazon's Staten Island site (a neighborhood in New York City).
The potential future union wants to demand, among other things, higher wages, job security, safer working conditions and more vacations.
It is notably piloted by Christian Smalls, a former employee of the group who had been dismissed after having organized a demonstration at JFK8, one of the warehouses on Staten Island.
According to Amazon, Mr. Smalls was ousted for coming to the scene when he was supposed to be in quarantine after coming into contact with an infected colleague.
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