A federal labor agency has denied Amazon.com’s request to overturn the results of a 2022 election in which workers voted to unionize a Staten Island, N.Y., warehouse.
A three-member panel from the National Labor Relations Board denied Amazon’s appeal, according to an NLRB filing Thursday. Amazon had appealed an earlier decision by a federal labor official that also denied the company’s request to overturn the election.
The decision means Amazon has essentially run out of options to reject the election results through the NLRB and will likely have to sue the agency if it seeks to present its arguments in court.
As it has gone through the NLRB appeals process, Amazon and the union haven’t had serious negotiations about a labor contract. An Amazon spokeswoman said the company plans to challenge the latest ruling.
“We believe today’s decision will be overturned when it’s reviewed by an unbiased court,” she said.
Chris Smalls, who has led Amazon unionization efforts on Staten Island, wrote in an X post on Thursday that Amazon “needs to stop wasting its time and money and come to the Table!”
Amazon shares, which have risen more than 13% so far this year, closed up less than 1% on Thursday.
Amazon has said the union and NLRB regional office that oversaw the vote created an unfair playing field for the election. It also took issue with the legal actions the NLRB took against the company during the election.
Amazon workers voted to unionize the large warehouse on Staten Island in 2022, creating the first unionized group in the company’s history. Workers haven’t unionized other facilities.
The Amazon Labor Union, the New York organization that has represented the Staten Island unionized employees, recently voted to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, one of America’s most prominent labor organizations. The Amazon union had been struggling to survive.
The Teamsters are organizing Amazon workers and have focused on delivery drivers.
Last week, a regional director for the NLRB said that Amazon is a joint employer of subcontracted drivers who deliver packages for the company from Palmdale, Calif. That ruling could serve as a proxy for how the agency views Amazon’s relationship with drivers.
The company has argued that drivers who are contracted to deliver its packages through third-party companies are not its employees but “delivery service partners.”
Brothers and sisters, the fight against Amazon’s tyranny has reached a pivotal moment.
The NLRB’s decision to deny Amazon’s desperate appeal is a victory for every worker who dares to stand up against the corporate behemoth.
Amazon, with all its billions, thought it could crush the will of the people with lawsuits and legal trickery, but this ruling shows that the power of the workers cannot be so easily dismissed.
But let’s be clear—this is just one battle in a much larger war. Amazon will continue to waste time and money trying to break the spirit of those fighting for a fair contract, while their profits soar and their executives laugh all the way to the bank. But we won’t be intimidated.
This decision is a signal that the tide is turning, and it’s time for Amazon to face the reality that workers will no longer be treated like disposable parts in their profit machine.
It’s time for Amazon to come to the table and recognize that the power of a united working force is far greater than their billions.