A committee of employees at Amazons recently opened Staten Island fulfillment center is going public with a unionization campaign, a fresh challenge to the e-commerce giant in a city where it plans to build a major new campus.
Labor unrest is the latest complication in Amazons plan to invest $2.5 billion and hire 25,000 people in the city over the next 15 years. Several New York City politicians who were shut out of negotiations handled by the governor and mayor have raised objections to a new office park in Queens that threatens to overload mass transit and drive up rents in an already expensive housing market.
Now workers in a another borough are saying the company treats them like robots and should be focused on improving conditions there rather than raking in tax breaks to build a new headquarters.
The union theyre working with sees the up to $3 billion in incentives offered to bring an Amazon office campus to Long Island City as leverage to prevent the company from retaliating against them for organizing.
Employees backing the union effort said in interviews Tuesday that the issues at the warehouse include safety concerns, inadequate pay, and 12-hour shifts with insufficient breaks and unreasonable hourly quotas, after which they lose more of their day waiting unpaid in long lines for security checks.
"They talk to you like youre nothing -- all they care about is their numbers," said Rashad Long, who makes $18.60 an hour and commutes four hours a day to work at the warehouse. "They talk to you like youre a robot."
A handful of pro-union Amazon employees joined community activists and elected officials at a City Hall press conference Wednesday prior to a city council hearing about the proposed major office development in Queens. There, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer denounced the governments "bad deal" with Amazon, asking, "What do the people get, and what are the workers going to get? Where is the labor agreement?"
... Amazon spokeswoman Rachael Lighty said in an email that the company "follows all state employment laws," including restricting employees hours to 60 at most per week. She said that during the extra-busy "peak" season, many employees welcome the opportunity to work extra hours at the overtime rate, which at the Staten Island facility is $26.25 to $34.50 an hour.
Not all Staten Island workers see it that way. Sharon Bleach said in an interview that shes insulted by the companys "power hours" in which employees are pressured to move extra fast in hopes of winning raffle tickets.
"Every day theyre changing the goal -- the finish line is changed every day," Bleach said. ... Amazon is slated to reap more than $1 billion in tax breaks and grants from New York as part of the Long Island City deal. Some lawmakers have said the states Public Authorities Control Board should reject the development unless the company makes stronger commitments in areas including infrastructure investment, housing affordability and worker rights.
Employees are working with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, or RWDSU, which has also backed organizing efforts at the Whole Foods grocery chain that Amazon acquired last year. Amazons workforce is union-free throughout the U.S..
Theres never been greater leverage -- if taxpayers are giving Amazon $3 billion, then taxpayers have the right to demand that Amazon stop being a union-busting company, said RWDSUs president, Stuart Appelbaum. Its incumbent upon the governor and the mayor to make sure that nothing happens to these workers who are standing up for their rights. If Amazon continues its union-busting activities in New York, they should call off the deal.