Posts tagged Staten Island
Report: Group that pushed Amazon union is ‘broke’ amid infighting
January 23, 2024 // But 21 months later it remains the lone organized warehouse in the US, and the grassroots group - called the Amazon Labor Union - is yet to finalize a contract with the corporation. This means they can't charge membership fees, and vice president Michelle Nieves told the Wall Street Journal that donations have dwindled and they're now 'pretty much broke'.
Drama in the Teachers’ Lounge
January 12, 2024 // Ed Calamia, an English teacher at a Bronx school, says he doesn’t support congestion pricing, but he still doesn’t think the leadership should be filing lawsuits on behalf of its members without consulting them first. The move by Mulgrew, he says, is not the first time UFT top brass has acted unilaterally. “Some people think the rank-and-file membership should be involved with decisions, and some people think once they’ve been elected, it’s a dictatorship,”
Judge Rules Amazon Engaged in Anti-Union Activities in New York
December 6, 2023 // The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has won a ruling against Amazon for harassing employees seeking to unionize its JFK8 and DYY6 fulfillment facilities in Staten Island, N.Y. In a Nov. 21 ruling, Administrative Law Judge Lauren Esposito found that Amazon had violated the National Labor Relations Act by dismissing employees early, altering employees’ work assignments and subjecting employees to closer supervision in retaliation for their support for the Amazon Labor Union. The decision also found that Amazon unlawfully interrogated employees, disparaged the union by using appeals to racial prejudice and derogatory racial stereotyping, and prohibited employees from distributing union literature and confiscating union literature from employees.
How the Amazon Labor Union helped shape modern workers’ rights
October 19, 2023 // For every 1% of Amazon's workforce that unionizes, analysts expect it to lead to an incremental $150 million in annual operating expenses.
Staten Island Ferry workers reach contract deal after 13 years
September 18, 2023 // It is common in New York City and elsewhere for union members to be left waiting for years without a contract. In fact, after a union is first certified, it can take over 400 days to ratify the first contract, not to mention future contracts. Some workers never see a contract. The Staten Island Ferry workers serve as an important reminder that collective bargaining is a lengthy process. And while unions continue raking in membership dues, members may not realize benefits for years or at all.
STATEN ISLAND: Amazon Union Dissidents, in Challenge to Leader, Move to Force Vote
July 11, 2023 // 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.”
Sean O’Brien’s summer of the strike
June 26, 2023 // It’s the spark for the combative spirit that permeates Teamsters headquarters, where a whiteboard charts a long-term battle plan on a timeline — “practice picketing,” “CAT trainings” (for “contract action teams”), “identify strike teams” … and finally, on the July 31 spot that marks the end of the current contract: “STRIKE.” Why strike now? As O’Brien himself acknowledged in his Senate testimony, UPS already offers the most plum jobs in the logistics industry, with driver salaries starting at $93,000. But O’Brien argues that the pandemic gave UPS workers the greatest leverage they’ve had in decades. In 2020, union members risked their health to keep packages moving. UPS’s profits surged and have remained high, with customers still hooked on the online shopping habits they adopted during the lockdowns. “Our members are fed up” and remain convinced, he said, that “the only concern that was being addressed was UPS’s bottom line and their balance sheet.” No better time, O’Brien reasons, for workers to go to the mat to demand wages beginning at $20 an hour, tighter safety provisions and an end to the two-tier employment system ushered in by the last contract.
‘War of attrition’: why union victories for US workers at Amazon have stalled
April 11, 2023 // The Athena Coalition, consisting of numerous worker centers and non-profits, has focused on supporting workers at Amazon and their efforts in garnering support for petitions and organizing walkouts supporting concrete demands at Amazon sites in Georgia, California, Illinois, Minnesota and elsewhere.
Amazon union faces division, delay a year after historic victory
April 3, 2023 // However, the visible presence of union support within the Staten Island warehouse has diminished significantly since the victory last year, according to three longtime workers at the facility. "Right after the election, there were about a dozen people I saw on the first floor wearing ALU t-shirts and yellow 'organizer' vests," Natalie Monarrez, a worker who considers herself pro-union and initially organized with the ALU but ultimately voted against unionization due to concerns regarding its leadership, told ABC News. "In the past few months, I haven't seen any ALU t-shirts or yellow vests," she added. Smalls, who has traveled nationwide over the past year to speaking engagements and meetings with Amazon workers at other warehouses, has received criticism from some union activists over a perceived lack of focus on organizing within the Staten Island facility, he said.