Luis Feliz Leon

Three miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, auto parts workers in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, voted yesterday to join an independent union, defeating company attempts to usher in an employer-friendly, politically connected union.

The independent Mexican Workers’ League (la Liga Sindical Obrera Mexicana) won 186 votes, while a union with ties to the powerful Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) received 101.

Amazon Bites Back in Vote at Second New York Warehouse

Blog: 
Author(s): 

The Amazon Labor Union, after making history in April when it won the first-ever unionized Amazon warehouse, JFK8 on Staten Island, New York, was routed in May in a second election at LDJ5, another warehouse in the same complex.

Amazon waged a fierce union-busting campaign, and it worked. Out of 1,633 eligible voters, 998 cast ballots: 380 yes and 618 no. There were no challenged ballots, and two ballots were voided. The ALU’s lawyer, Seth Goldstein, has said the union will challenge the outcome.

The company has billed itself as the everything store. Now Amazon is the throw-everything-at-them union-buster—trying every trick in the playbook to throttle worker organizing at its Staten Island warehouses in New York City.

The union vote at a second warehouse, a neighboring sorting center known as LDJ5, is set to start April 25, so the company has turned its focus there.

It’s the magical stuff of Disney movies. But yesterday, the improbable became the most probable when the scrappy band of workers who make up the Amazon Labor Union took the lead in a union election at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, putting within reach a historic labor win at the corporate behemoth.

In initial vote tallies today, Amazon warehouse workers in New York are ahead by hundreds of votes in favor of forming a union, while in Alabama the election is too close to call, pending a court hearing.

As the country cheers on Starbucks workers organizing, the votes will be counted this week in two big union drives at Amazon warehouses—one in Alabama and one in New York.

Walkouts Hit Amazon’s Last-Mile Stations

Blog: 
Author(s): 

Around 60 workers at three Amazon delivery stations—the final stop in the company’s logistics chain—staged a work stoppage early this morning.

Amazonians United, a network of rank-and-file worker committees around the U.S. and Canada, coordinated the walkouts in New York City and Maryland in its latest show of shop floor strength.

Uber’s lobbyists, after clinching an agreement with UFCW Canada to launch a charm offensive at the Ontario provincial government for employee-like benefits on behalf of an estimated 100,00 drivers, weren’t done hobnobbing with unions.

Next up, the Teamsters in Washington state are working on a deal with Uber and Lyft.

UPDATE, March 1: Workers at Mexico's Tridonex auto parts plant in the border city of Matamoros overwhelmingly voted for an independent union on February 28. Workers cast 1,126 votes for the National Independent Union of Industry and Service Workers, 20/32 Movement (SNITIS), while 176 voted for the incumbent Industrial Union of Workers in Maquiladora and Assembly Plants (SITPME), which is affiliated with the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM).

Pages