Amazon Labor Union says it has NLRB go-ahead for second NYC election

Amazon employees at the Staten Island LDJ5 warehouse have reportedly gotten the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) permission to continue with unionization efforts, according to the Amazon Labor Union, after the workers filed a petition to unionize in February. According to a screenshot posted by Vice reporter Lauren Kaori Gurley, Amazon has acknowledged the decision in a message sent to employees through its A to Z app.

The Amazon Labor Union, or ALU, has been working to unionize the facility for a while — in October it filed a petition to unionize Amazon’s facilities on Staten Island, but later refiled that petition to focus on a single warehouse, JFK8. Workers at JFK8 have since gotten approval to hold an election starting on March 25th. After the ALU filed a petition for LDJ5, the NLRB said it would confirm it “met the showing of interest requirement to proceed with a union election.”

A spokesperson for the NLRB could not immediately confirm that the approval had been granted, and Amazon did not immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment. However, the ALU claims it’s received that approval. Based on the process for JFK8, the next step will be an NLRB hearing, after which specifics and dates for the election would be decided.

Amazon has previously been accused of anti-union actions in New York, with the NLRB alleging that it threatened, surveilled, and interrogated workers.

There are two other Amazon facilities involved in union elections. In addition to JFK8, Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama facility recently held its election redo, after the NLRB decided that Amazon had interfered with the first one. Election officials for the Bessemer union drive are scheduled to start counting votes on March 28th, according to NPR. In the original election, the vote was 1,798 to 738 in Amazon’s favor.