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Amazon Labor Union (ALU) will join forces with the Teamsters, the organizations announced Tuesday, two years after the ALU’s historic vote to unionize a Staten Island Amazon warehouse
The ALU was the first union for Amazon workers and remains the only successful union drive at an Amazon plant, but it has struggled financially and has yet to begin bargaining with Amazon.
Its members voted 98.3 percent in favor of joining with the 1.3 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters to become the newly formed ALU-International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 1, representing around 5,500 warehouse workers at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island. The newly formed local will also have jurisdiction over all New York City warehouses, the Teamsters said, in a signal that they plan to continue trying to unionize other facilities.
“Workers at Amazon—in the warehouses or behind the wheel—have proven they have the strength, unity, and determination to take on the greediest employer on the planet, and win,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement announcing the news.
“The Teamsters and ALU will fight fearlessly to ensure Amazon workers secure the good jobs and safe working conditions they deserve in a union contract,” he continued.
The decision comes after the Teamsters secured a historic contract in 2023 with UPS warehouse workers and drivers, which it says will be a model for their negotiating with Amazon.
“You can be certain that we will hold Amazon to these same standards, and not the other way around. As long as Amazon exploits and abuses workers, this corporate bully will have to answer to the Teamsters and ALU, standing together,” O’Brien said.
The ALU’s successful union drive at an Amazon Staten Island location was followed by two failed unionization attempts, one at a different Staten Island warehouse and another in Albany. Those failures led to tension inside the union as some turned against its leader, ALU President Chris Smalls, who rose to the national spotlight after the successful JFK8 Drive.
Amazon has repeatedly refused to come to the bargaining tabling with the ALU and has intensely pushed back against unionization efforts at JFK8 and other facilities, both through lawsuits and expensive anti-union consultants.
Smalls lauded the decision to join forces with the Teamsters on Tuesday, saying in a statement, “I’m proud of our members choosing a path to victory. We’re now stronger than ever before.”
“Having the support of 1.3 million Teamsters to take on Amazon gives us tremendous worker power and the opportunities to demand better conditions for our members and, most importantly, to secure a contract at JFK8,” he said.