Amazon is gearing up for its toughest labor fight yet, with two separate union elections coming to a head as soon as next week that could provide further momentum to the recent wave of organizing efforts across the country. Warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York, and Bessemer, Alabama, will determine whether or not they want to form a union. If a majority votes yes at either location, it would mark the first successful U.S. organizing effort in Amazon history. Rejection would notch another victory for the country’s second-largest employer in keeping unions at bay. Here’s what the elections will look like in Bessemer and Staten Island: THE VOTING Last April, workers in Bessemer overwhelmingly voted against a union bid, providing a bitter defeat for a labor movement that had already been declining in influence but making some gains during the pandemic. Federal labor officials later scrapped the results and ordered a re-do, ruling Amazon tainted the election process. Ballots for the second election were mailed to 6,100 employees in early February. The counting process is expected to start on Monday and could last for several days. Meanwhile, Amazon workers in the Staten Island warehouse began in-person voting Friday in their first union election. The facility is one of Amazon’s largest in New York City with more than 8,300 employees. Voting will wrap up Wednesday, with the counting expected to begin shortly thereafter.   UNION SUPPORT The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union is once again spearheading the drive at the Alabama facility. More than 150 organizers from the union, as well as from roughly 20 other labor groups were on the ground since last summer — a bigger push than in the first election — to galvanize support. Vaccines made it easier during the ongoing pandemic to knock on workers’ doors and also visit barbershops, stores and other places to distribute flyers and chat with residents. Pulling off a win could still be tough. There’s high turnover at the facility, making it difficult to build momentum. At the same time, organizers estimate about half of current workers were eligible to vote in the last election, offering the RWDSU a chance to tap new workers who may be more amenable to a union. In Staten Island, Amazon workers are currently organizing under the independent Amazon Labor Union led by Chris Smalls, a former employee who says he was fired after leading a protest over the warehouse’s working conditions in the early days of the pandemic. (Amazon said he violated COVID-19 safety protocols.) The nascent union seeks to negotiate higher wages, more paid time off and other benefits for workers, 100 of which sit on its worker committee. Some of them have been wearing shirts and masks with the group’s logo during work shifts. Others have been handing out pro-union fliers after work and encouraging their co-workers to unionize. NEW YORK VS. ALABAMA The union landscape in Alabama is starkly different from New York. Last year, union members accounted for 22.2% of wage and salary workers in New York, ranked only behind Hawaii, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s more than double the national average of 10.3%. In Alabama, it’s 5.9%. Alabama is also a right-to-work state, which prohibit a company and a union from signing a contract that […]

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