Demand Amazon Stop Union-Busting Efforts

Target: David Zapolsky, Amazon General Counsel

Goal: Stop Amazon’s anti-unionization efforts and respect your employees’ right to organize for better work conditions.

Voting day has arrived for the workers at Amazon’s JFK8 Fulfillment Center on Staten Island, New York. The ALU (Amazon Labor Union), founded by former JFK8 employee Christian Smalls, is the latest in a trend of highly publicized corporate unionization efforts, including Amazon workers from Alabama and disgruntled Starbucks employees in Seattle. The ALU is organizing for better work conditions, in the form of one-hour, paid lunch breaks, $30 per hour wage, and the right to keep their phones during work hours. However, on Staten Island, as in Alabama, Amazon management is quelling organization momentum and undermining their workforce’s right to fairly and democratically form a union.

This is the second Amazon facility to try and organize a union. The Alabama site, which held their union elections last year, failed to garner sufficient votes in favor of the organization, the results of which are now void due to a federal labor investigation corroborating accusations of Amazon’s interference by tainting ballots. Similar anti-unionization efforts are being exercised by upper management at JFK8. As reported by The City, the Staten Island facilities are now adorned with anti-union propaganda (“Your workplace. Your choice. Vote no.,”) and shirts with “Vote No” being handed out on the work-floor. Management has also launched a website as well as daily mandatory meetings covering the “‘reality of dues and the subject of union life.” Amazon has even gone as far as to attack the ALU directly, stating on their website that “the ALU is making big promises but offering very little detail on how they will achieve them.” Leaked notes obtained by VICE News show these efforts reaching as far up as Jeff Bezos and GC David Zapolsky, who were included in an email discussing plans to paint ALU leader Christian Smalls as “not smart or articulate.” 

Under the National Labor Relations Act statute, private sector employees have the right to self-organization and collective bargaining for the purposes of mutual aid. The National Labor Relations Board has already approved JFK8’s union election and will count the ballots at the conclusion of the voting this month. Sign below to demand that Amazon cease their union busting agenda and allow their employees to freely and fairly exercise their right to unionize.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Mr. Zapolsky, 

A group of concerned employees at Amazon’s JFK8 Fulfillment Center on Staten Island have decided to address the facility’s unfair working conditions and exercise their right to unionize. The right to self-organize is a legally guaranteed liberty granted to all private employees. In the last year, the workers at two of your company’s locations were seen enacting this grant in response to Amazon’s inability to redress employees’ desire for decent wages, humane break rules, and determined workers rights. 

We demand that you halt all anti-union messaging immediately including work-place propaganda, misinformation, and daily mandatory meetings.

Sincerely, 

[Your Name Here]

Photo Credit: Joe Piette