Smalls, Christian

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Amazon Union Group, Challenging Christian Smalls, Seeks Vote

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A split over the stewardship of the union’s high-profile president, Christian Smalls, has led a rival faction to file a lawsuit seeking an election.A dissident group within the Amazon Labor Union, the only certified union in the country representing Amazon employees, filed a complaint in federal court Monday seeking to force the union to hold a leadership election.The union won an election at a Staten Island warehouse with more than 8,000 employees in April 2022, but Amazon has challenged the result and has yet to begin bargaining on a contract.The rise of the dissident group, which calls itself the A.L.U. Democratic Reform Caucus and includes a co-founder and former treasurer of the union, reflects a growing split within the union that appears to have undermined its ability to pressure Amazon. The split has also threatened to sap the broader labor movement of the momentum generated by last year’s high-profile victory.In its complaint, the reform caucus argues that the union and its president, Christian Smalls, illegally “refuse to hold officer elections which should have been scheduled no later than March 2023.”The complaint asks a federal judge to schedule an election of the union’s top officers for no later than Aug. 30 and to appoint a neutral monitor to oversee the election.Mr. Smalls said in a text message Monday that the complaint was “a ridiculous claim with zero facts or merit,” and a law firm representing the union said it would seek legal sanctions against the reform group’s lawyer if the complaint was filed.The complaint states that under an earlier version of the union’s constitution, a leadership election was required within 60 days of the National Labor Relations Board’s certification of its victory.But in December, the month before the labor board certification, the union’s leadership presented a new constitution to the membership that scheduled elections after the union ratifies a contract with Amazon — an accomplishment that could take years, if it happens at all.On Friday, the reform caucus sent the union’s leadership a letter laying out its proposal to hold prompt elections, saying it would go to court Monday if the leadership didn’t embrace the proposal.The reform group is made of up more than 40 active organizers who are also plaintiffs in the legal complaint, including Connor Spence, a union co-founder and former treasurer; Brett Daniels, the union’s former organizing director; and Brima Sylla, a prominent organizer at the Staten Island warehouse.The group said in its letter that enacting the proposal could “mean the difference between an A.L.U. which is strong, effective, and a beacon of democracy in the labor movement” and “an A.L.U. which, in the end, became exactly what Amazon warned workers it would become: a business that takes away the workers’ voices.”Mr. Smalls said in his text that the union leadership had worked closely with its law firm to ensure that its actions were legal, as well as with the U.S. Labor Department.Jeanne Mirer, a lawyer for the union, wrote to a lawyer for the reform caucus that the lawsuit was frivolous and based on falsehoods. She said that Mr. Spence had “improperly and unilaterally” replaced the union’s founding constitution with a revised version in June 2022, and that the revision, which called for elections after certification, had never been formally adopted by the union’s board.Retu Singla, another lawyer for the union, said in an interview that the constitution was never made final because there were disagreements about it within the union’s leadership.Mr. Spence said he and other members of the union’s board had revised the constitution while consulting extensively with the union’s lawyers. A second union official involved in the discussions corroborated his account.The split within the union dates from last fall, when several longtime Amazon Labor Union organizers became frustrated with Mr. Smalls after a lopsided loss in a union election at an Amazon warehouse near Albany, N.Y.In a meeting shortly after the election, organizers argued that control of the union rested in too few hands and that the leadership should be elected, giving rank-and-file workers more input.The skeptics also complained that Mr. Smalls was committing the union to elections without a plan for how to win them, and that the union needed a better process for determining which organizing efforts to support. Many organizers worried that Mr. Smalls spent too much time traveling the country to make public appearances rather than focus on the contract fight on Staten Island.Mr. Smalls later said in an interview that his travel was necessary to help raise money for the union and that the critics’ preferred approach — building up worker support for a potential strike that could bring Amazon to the bargaining table — was counterproductive because it could alarm workers who feared losing their livelihoods.He said a worker-led movement shouldn’t turn its back on workers at other warehouses if they sought to unionize. A top union official hired by Mr. Smalls also argued that holding an election before the union had a more systematic way of reaching out to workers would be undemocratic because only the most committed activists would vote.When Mr. Smalls unveiled the new union constitution in December, scheduling elections after a contract was ratified, many of the skeptics walked out. The two factions have operated independently this year, with both sides holding regular meetings with members.In April, the reform caucus began circulating a petition among workers at the Staten Island warehouse calling on the leadership to amend the constitution and hold prompt elections. The petition has been signed by hundreds of workers at the facility.The petition soon became a point of tension with Mr. Smalls. In an exchange with a member of the reform caucus on WhatsApp in early May, copies of which are included in Monday’s legal complaint, Mr. Smalls said the union would “take legal action against you” if the caucus did not abandon the petition.The tensions appeared to ease later that month after the union leadership under Mr. Smalls proposed that the two sides enter mediation. The reform caucus accepted the invitation and suspended the petition campaign.But according to a memo that the mediator, Bill Fletcher Jr., sent both sides on June 29 and that was viewed by The New York Times, the union leadership backed out of the mediation process on June 18 without explanation.“I am concerned that the apparent turmoil within the ALU E. Board means that little is being done to organize the workers and prepare for the battle with Amazon,” Mr. Fletcher wrote in the memo, referring to the union’s executive board. “This situation seriously weakens support among the workers.”Colin Moynihan More

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    Amazon Labor Union Loses Election at Warehouse Near Albany

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    By a 2-to-1 ratio, the group had its second defeat since a surprise victory in April on Staten Island.Workers at an Amazon facility near Albany, N.Y., have voted decisively against being represented by the upstart Amazon Labor Union, denting efforts to expand unionization across the giant e-commerce company.Employees at the warehouse cast 206 votes to be represented by the union and 406 against, according to a count released on Tuesday by the National Labor Relations Board. Almost 950 workers were eligible to vote.The vote was the Amazon Labor Union’s second unsuccessful election since a surprise victory in April, when workers at an Amazon facility on Staten Island voted to form the first union of the company’s warehouse employees in the United States.“We’re glad that our team in Albany was able to have their voices heard, and that they chose to keep the direct relationship with Amazon,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement.In recent months, the Amazon Labor Union has debated whether to focus on winning a contract at the Staten Island facility, known as JFK8, or on expanding its reach to other warehouses around the country through additional elections.Christian Smalls, the union’s president, “is very much in favor of trying to create opportunities for as many workers as possible to vote,” said Cassio Mendoza, a JFK8 worker and the union’s communications director. At the same time, the union has felt pressure to demonstrate progress to workers on Staten Island, and has recently stepped up its internal organizing there after months of minimal public activity.The result on Tuesday from the ALB1 warehouse in Castleton-on-Hudson, N.Y., about 10 miles south of Albany, did not appear to dissuade the union from reaching beyond JFK8.More on Big TechIn Australia: Dozens of workers at Apple walked off the job after negotiations over pay and working conditions stalled. This is why the action is significant.Inside Meta’s Struggles: After a rocky year, employees at Meta are expressing skepticism, confusion and frustration over Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse.A Deal for Twitter?: In a surprise move, Elon Musk has offered to acquire Twitter at his original price of $44 billion, which could bring to an end the acrimonious legal fight between the billionaire and the company.Hiring Freezes: Amazon is halting corporate hiring in its retail business for the rest of the year, joining Meta as the latest tech companies to pull back amid the economic uncertainty.“We are filled with resolve to continue and expand our campaign for fair treatment for all Amazon workers,” Mr. Smalls said in a statement. “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”About 80 percent of the union’s budget of more than half a million dollars has been focused on Staten Island, union officials have said. The rest has been set aside for expansion efforts, including at ALB1 and a facility in Southern California that submitted a petition for an election last week.Mr. Smalls said the election “wasn’t free and fair.” Even before the ballots were tallied on Tuesday, the union expressed concern that Amazon had improperly interfered with the vote, potentially laying the groundwork for a legal objection to the result.Labor board staff members have been investigating 27 charges of unfair labor practices that the union filed against Amazon before the voting began, the agency said last week. The union has since lodged additional concerns.One included an accusation that a worker had been suspended for complaining that one of Amazon’s anti-union consultants followed him around and harassed him during the voting period, according to Retu Singla, a lawyer representing the union.“They try to whip votes during the election,” said Mr. Mendoza, who added that the consultant appeared to be wearing worker clothes and an Amazon vest.Another employee, who was not directly involved with the union campaign and requested anonymity, said on the first day of voting that he had seen what appeared to be “fake employees” who were wearing Amazon vests but did not know the basics of the jobs and cast doubt on the union’s ability to negotiate a contract.Matthew Bodie, a former N.L.R.B. lawyer now at the University of Minnesota Law School, said that while one-on-one conversations with workers during the voting period were allowed, seeking to deceive employees by misrepresenting the identity of company agents could amount to interference in the election.Amazon declined to comment on the accusations.The ALB1 warehouse handles oversize items like outdoor equipment and televisions. A recent report by a worker advocacy group found that the facility had the highest rate of serious injuries of any Amazon warehouse in New York for which the group was able to obtain government data.Amazon has emphasized its minimum starting wage and benefits, and has said it has improved its safety record more than other retailers in recent years. In its messaging to workers, it has questioned the Amazon Labor Union’s experience and has said workers could be worse off if they voted for a union.In interviews outside the warehouse in September, some Amazon workers said they were supporting the union because pay was too low, especially in light of how physically taxing the work could be. The company recently raised its starting base wage at the warehouse to $17 an hour, from $15.70.“I think we need a union — we need more pay,” said Masud Abdullah, an employee at the warehouse. He said he had made about $22 an hour at an industrial bakery, but left that job because the hours did not fit with his parenting responsibilities.He and other workers also said they felt Amazon’s disciplinary policies were sometimes arbitrary. “It’s like you don’t have nobody representing you,” Mr. Abdullah said. “They could get you in and out for anything.”Other workers said they didn’t believe a union was necessary because Amazon already provided solid pay and benefits, such as health care and college tuition subsidies. Even some union supporters acknowledged that the company often treated workers well.Some workers expressed skepticism that the Amazon Labor Union would deliver on its promises, such as improving pay. “I feel like I haven’t seen any evidence,” said Jacob Carpenter, who works at the warehouse. He added that he planned to vote no.Amazon has been fighting the union’s successful vote on Staten Island. After a lengthy hearing on the company’s objections to that election, a labor board official recently endorsed the union’s victory. A regional official must still weigh in, but Amazon told workers at JFK8 that it intended to appeal. The union has recently pushed a petition to pressure Amazon to negotiate a contract. More

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    Amazon Labor Union, With Renewed Momentum, Faces Next Test

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    The Amazon Labor Union has built momentum leading up to an election this week at an 800-person warehouse near Albany, N.Y.A federal labor official recently endorsed the union’s election victory at a Staten Island warehouse in April, which Amazon has challenged, while workers’ frustrations over pay and safety have created an opportunity to add supporters and pressure the company to bargain.But the union faces questions about whether it can translate such opportunities into lasting gains. For months after its victory at the 8,000-person warehouse on Staten Island, the union appeared to be out of its depths. It nearly buckled under a crush of international media attention and lost a vote at a second Staten Island warehouse in May.At times, it has neglected organizing inside the original warehouse, known as JFK8, where high turnover means the union must do constant outreach just to maintain support — to say nothing of expanding. Christian Smalls, the union’s president and a former JFK8 employee, seemed distracted as he traveled widely. There was burnout and infighting in the group, and several core members left or were pushed out.“It wasn’t clear what goal we should be working towards,” said Cassio Mendoza, a JFK8 worker and the union’s communications director, alluding to the sometimes competing priorities of pushing for a contract and organizing more warehouses.The election near Albany, to be spread out over four days between Wednesday and Monday in Castleton-on-Hudson, could help determine whether the earlier problems were natural growing pains or a sign of deeper dysfunction.Amazon employees at the barbecue signed a petition calling on the company to negotiate with the union. DeSean McClinton–Holland for The New York TimesAmazon has cast doubt on the Amazon Labor Union’s experience and says it doesn’t believe that the union represents workers’ views. The company said it was investing $1 billion over the next year to permanently raise hourly pay.Among the union’s biggest diversions in recent months was countering Amazon’s attempt to overturn its victory, which consumed time and resources, as supporters and leaders testified in hearings that dragged across 24 business days beginning in mid-June. The union delayed plans to train more workers as organizers. A national organizing call was put on hold.Just before Labor Day, the National Labor Relations Board official running the hearings recommended rejecting Amazon’s challenge and certifying the union. A regional official must still weigh in.More on Big TechInside Meta’s Struggles: After a rocky year, employees at Meta are expressing skepticism, confusion and frustration over Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse.A Deal for Twitter?: In a surprise move, Elon Musk has offered to acquire Twitter at his original price of $44 billion, which could bring to an end the acrimonious legal fight between the billionaire and the company.Hiring Freezes: Amazon is halting corporate hiring in its retail business for the rest of the year, joining Meta as the latest tech companies to pull back amid the economic uncertainty.TikTok Nears Deal with U.S.: The Biden administration and the Chinese-owned video app have drafted a preliminary agreement to resolve national security concerns over the platform, but hurdles remain over the terms.The finding appeared to bolster the union within the Staten Island warehouse, though management responded by sending workers a message saying the company intended to appeal. “We believe a direct relationship with you is best,” the message said.Around the same time, the union began to refocus. It opened an office on Staten Island in late August, hired two full-time staff members and set up a database tracking worker support. “I feel we are in a better place than we have ever been,” Mr. Mendoza said.The union brought in prominent labor organizers to lead regular in-person training on how to push for a contract. It finally held two calls in an effort to recruit and train leaders for organizing drives nationwide.“Your building could be next, and that is why we are having this call,” Madeline Wesley, an Amazon employee who is a lead Amazon Labor Union organizer for the second Staten Island warehouse, said on one call. Workers who indicated they were from facilities in Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio and Washington took part.The union, which says it has set aside about one-fifth of its more than half-million-dollar budget for expansion, is already backing other organizing campaigns, including the one in Castleton-on-Hudson and another at a warehouse east of Los Angeles. Nannette Plascencia, a self-described “soccer mom” who is the California facility’s lead organizer, met Mr. Smalls at a party in Hollywood and decided that the Amazon Labor Union “understood where we were coming from,” she recalled in an interview.On Tuesday, the union submitted a petition for an election to represent workers at Ms. Plascencia’s warehouse, according to the N.L.R.B. Officials have yet to verify whether the union demonstrated enough support to warrant an election.“Check out the Amazon 25-cent raise — we’re not falling for that,” Christian Smalls, the union’s president, said at the barbecue.DeSean McClinton–Holland for The New York TimesIn late September, Amazon told workers that it was increasing hourly wages to reflect local market conditions, pledging to raise them by more than $1 in many warehouses. But at JFK8, where pay started at $18.25 an hour, the raise was between 25 cents and 75 cents an hour, depending on level and tenure.“It’s not enough to buy groceries,” said Celia Camasca, an employee of the warehouse there. “It would be better if they would have said nothing.”The union emphasized the slim raise at a barbecue outside the warehouse that had been coincidentally planned for an afternoon shortly after workers learned about it. “Check out the Amazon 25-cent raise — we’re not falling for that,” said Mr. Smalls, the union’s president and the event’s M.C.Union officials circulated a petition demanding that Amazon come to the bargaining table and that it give workers on Staten Island an immediate cost-of-living wage increase. Brandon Wagner, a packer who said that he had worked at the warehouse for about a month and that he previously made $17 an hour at a Wendy’s, signed the petition while waiting in line for food because, he said, workers are underpaid.Paul Flaningan, an Amazon spokesman, said that the national average pay for most frontline jobs was more than $19 an hour and that the company offered “comprehensive benefits” for full-time employees, including health insurance from Day 1, paid parental leave and 401(k) matching.The union still faces numerous obstacles. Amazon could spend years appealing the election result on Staten Island, and the company still has enormous power over JFK8 workers. After workers protested Amazon’s response to a fire at the site last week, the company suspended more than 60 of them with pay while, it said, it investigated what had occurred. The union filed unfair-labor-practice charges over the suspensions; Amazon said most of the workers had returned to work.The voting near Albany presents the union with its most visible immediate test.In interviews outside the warehouse, which handles oversize items like lawn mowers and televisions, many workers cited safety concerns and said pay was too low given the difficulty of the work. New workers made a base wage of $15.70 an hour before an increase of $1.30 this month.Heather Goodall is a leader of the union effort at Amazon’s warehouse in Castleton-on-Hudson, N.Y.DeSean McClinton–Holland for The New York TimesSome also complained that Amazon was too quick to discipline workers for minor infractions.David Bornt, who scans in merchandise before placing it in bins, said a misunderstanding over a quota had recently led to his being written up. He argued that a union could ease such stresses.“It’s someone to have your back,” Mr. Bornt said. “I have four kids, one on the way. I can’t be worried about losing my job at any minute.”Other employees said they opposed the union because they were satisfied with their pay and benefits and didn’t see how a union could improve the situation.“There’s just no need for it,” said Anthony Hough, one of those workers. “We just got a raise.”According to government data, Albany is one of the most unionized metropolitan areas in the country, and many employees expressed positive views about unions. But some said past experience at unionized workplaces made them less eager to join another one. Some also said they distrusted the Amazon Labor Union in particular.“The A.L.U. is new,” said Jacob Carpenter, another employee. “They’re not giving us any information.”The election outcome is likely to shape perceptions of the union. Heather Goodall, the lead organizer at the warehouse, is a member of the Amazon Labor Union’s board, and leaders of the union like Connor Spence, its treasurer, have visited the Albany area regularly. Mr. Smalls has traveled there as well.Ms. Goodall said she was concerned about safety at the warehouse. An Amazon spokesman said the company had a better overall safety record than other retailers. DeSean McClinton–Holland for The New York TimesMs. Goodall said she joined Amazon in February to help unionize the warehouse because she was concerned about unusually high injury rates, among other safety issues. The facility was evacuated after a cardboard compactor caught fire last week, two days after the JFK8 fire, which was similar.“The timeline to fix things is before something tragic happens,” Ms. Goodall said.She accused Amazon of running an aggressive anti-union campaign, including regular meetings with employees in which it questions the union’s credibility and suggests that workers could end up worse off if they unionize.Mr. Flaningan, the company spokesman, said that while injuries increased as Amazon trained hundreds of thousands of new workers in 2021, the company believed that its safety record surpassed that of other retailers over a broader period.“Like many other companies, we hold these meetings because it’s important that everyone understands the facts about joining a union and the election process itself,” he said, adding that the decision to unionize is up to employees. More

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    Amazon Fires Senior Managers Tied to Unionized Staten Island Warehouse

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    Company officials said the terminations were the result of an internal review, while the fired managers saw it as a response to the recent union victory.After Amazon employees at a massive warehouse on Staten Island scored an upset union victory last month, it turned the union’s leaders into celebrities, sent shock waves through the broader labor movement and prompted politicians around the country to rally behind Amazon workers. Now it also appears to have created fallout within Amazon’s management ranks.On Thursday, Amazon informed more than half a dozen senior managers involved with the Staten Island warehouse that they were being fired, said four current and former employees with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.The firings, which occurred outside the company’s typical employee review cycle, were seen by the managers and other people who work at the facility as a response to the victory by the Amazon Labor Union, three of the people said. Workers at the warehouse voted by a wide margin to form the first union at the company in the United States, in one of the biggest victories for organized labor in at least a generation.Word of the shake-up spread through the warehouse on Thursday. Many of the managers had been responsible for carrying out the company’s response to the unionization effort. Several were veterans of the company, with more than six years of experience, according to their LinkedIn profiles.Workers who supported the union complained that the company’s health and safety protocols were too lax, particularly as they related to Covid-19 and repetitive strain injuries, and that the company pushed them too hard to meet performance targets, often at the expense of sufficient breaks. Many also said pay at the warehouse, which starts at over $18 per hour for full-time workers, was too low to live on in New York City.Understand the Unionization Efforts at AmazonBeating Amazon: A homegrown, low-budget push to unionize at a Staten Island warehouse led to a historic labor victory. (Workers at another nearby Amazon facility rejected joining a similar effort shortly after.)Retaliation: Weeks after the landmark win, Amazon fired several managers in Staten Island. Some see it as retaliation for their involvement in the unionization efforts.A New Playbook: The success of the Amazon union’s independent drive has organized labor asking whether it should take more of a back seat.Amazon’s Approach: The company has countered unionization efforts with mandatory “training” sessions that carry clear anti-union messages.An Amazon spokeswoman said the company had made the management changes after spending several weeks evaluating aspects of the “operations and leadership” at JFK8, which is the company’s name for the warehouse. “Part of our culture at Amazon is to continually improve, and we believe it’s important to take time to review whether or not we’re doing the best we could be for our team,” said Kelly Nantel, the spokeswoman.The managers were told they were being fired as part of an “organizational change,” two people said. One of the people said some of the managers were strong performers who recently received positive reviews.The Staten Island facility is Amazon’s only fulfillment center in New York City, and for a year current and former workers at the facility organized to form an upstart, independent union. The company is challenging the election, saying that the union’s unconventional tactics were coercive and that the National Labor Relations Board was biased in the union’s favor. And the union is working to maintain the pressure on Amazon so it will negotiate a contract.Christian Smalls, the president of the Amazon Labor Union, testified on Thursday before a Senate committee that was exploring whether companies that violate labor laws should be denied federal contracts. Mr. Smalls later attended a White House meeting with other labor organizers in which he directly asked President Biden to press Amazon to recognize his union.A White House spokeswoman said it was up to the National Labor Relations Board to certify the results of the recent election but affirmed that Mr. Biden had long supported collective bargaining and workers’ rights to unionize.Amazon has said that it invested $300 million on safety projects in 2021 alone and that it provides pay above the minimum wage with solid benefits like health care to full-time workers as soon as they join the company.More than 8,000 workers at the warehouse were eligible to vote, and the union made a point of reaching out to employees from different ethnic groups, including African Americans, Latinos and immigrants from Africa and Asia, as well as those of different political persuasions, from conservatives to progressives.Company officials and consultants held more than 20 mandatory meetings per day with employees in the run-up to the election, in which they sought to persuade workers not to support the union. The officials highlighted the amount of money that the union would collect from them and emphasized the uncertainty of collective bargaining, which they said could leave workers worse off.Labor experts say such claims can be misleading because it is highly unusual for workers to see their compensation fall as a result of the bargaining process.Roughly one month after the union victory at JFK8, Amazon workers at a smaller facility nearby voted against unionizing by a decisive margin.The votes came during what could be an inflection point for organized labor. While the rate of union membership reached its lowest point in decades last year (about 10 percent of U.S. workers) petitions to hold union elections were up more than 50 percent over the previous year during the six months ending in March, according to the National Labor Relations Board. The number of petitions is on pace to reach its highest point in at least a decade.Since December, workers at Starbucks have won initial union votes at more than 50 stores nationwide, while workers have organized or sought to organize at other companies that did not previously have unions, such as Apple and the outdoor apparel retailer REI.Grace Ashford More