Uh-Oh, Amazon: Warehouse Workers Vote to Unionize in NY

“We want to thank Jeff Bezos for going to space, because while he was up there, we were signing people up,” said union organizer Christian Smalls.

Workers and workers, activists and climate activists, representatives of the Make Amazon Pay coalition (including Greenpeace) protested today in front of Amazon’s distribution center in Wrocław, urging the corporation to pay fair and fair wages to people working at Amazon and to take responsibility for damage caused to communities, the climate and the planet. Dozens of people blocked the entrance to the distribution center for more than two hours. December 16, 2020. Photo: Max Zieliński / Greenpeace Polska

In a vote that was 2,654 to 2,131, Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island voted on Friday to unionize. This successful attempt at labor organization is a first for Amazon in the U.S.

But it isn’t likely to be the last.

Occasionally, unexpected companies like the quirky camping equipment giant REI suffer the wrath of labor organizers. REI’s feeble objections about company co-ops, cushy benefits and even pleas of corporate poverty typify the process, though they don’t always work.

Most of the time when employees try to organize, however, companies well known for pushing the outward limits of what workers will tolerate in the name of profitability are targeted.

There is an idea at the heart of free market capitalism- that companies who treat their employees justly don’t have to worry about unions and unionization. But if this honor system worked, the U.S. wouldn’t need child labor laws.

We have child labor laws, sadly, because we need them. Without government oversight and regulatory guidance, society need not wonder what unscrupulous companies would do to make a quick buck.