Amazon workers at warehouse near Albany file petition for union election

Amazon workers at a warehouse in upstate New York have filed a union petition with the National Labor Relations Board, the agency confirmed Tuesday.

Workers at the warehouse, which is located in Shodak, southeast of Albany, New York, are seeking representation from the Amazon Workers Union, a group of current and former Amazon workers that successfully unionized one of the company’s Staten Island unions warehouses known as JFK8 earlier this year.

NLRB spokeswoman Kayla Blado confirmed that organizers at the warehouse, which is called ALB1, filed a petition with the agency on Tuesday for a proposed 400-person unit. She added that the NLRB’s regional office in Buffalo is in the process of verifying whether the group has received interest, indicating it has met the required threshold for employee signatures.

Heather Goodall, an ALB1 warehouse worker who is leading the organizing effort, said she and other organizers plan to hold a news conference Wednesday to discuss the union campaign.

Goodall and other workers have been trying to organize their workplace for the past few months. Amazon took notice. Late last month, she began holding meetings at ALB1 discouraging employees from unionizing, including slideshow presentations that described unions as “businesses that sell a service.”

The organizing effort in Albany marks the latest attempt to unionize an Amazon warehouse. The ALU, led by former employee Chris Smalls, failed to replicate its successful union drive at another Staten Island warehouse in May, but is still trying to gain traction elsewhere, including in Albany and a warehouse in Kentucky. Meanwhile, election results at an Alabama facility remain too close to call.

Amazon representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company previously said it did not believe unions were the right choice for its employees. Amazon is also fighting to throw out the vote at its JFK8 warehouse, arguing that the ALU and NLRB acted in a way that tainted the election results.

A union leading a unionization effort in Alabama is challenging the results of a recent election, claiming Amazon improperly interfered in the campaign. Amazon also objected to the union’s conduct during the election.

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