Amazon Workers In North Carolina To Vote On Unionisation

Amazon senior management are confronting another unionisation attempt at one of its warehouses in the United States.

CNBC reported that Amazon warehouse workers at a site in North Carolina will vote next month on whether to join a union. The location is said to be a facility in Garner, North Carolina.

It comes after Amazon delivery drivers and warehouse workers in seven cities across US staged a two day strike just before Christmas 2024, after the e-commerce giant failed to negotiate.

Unionisation vote

Amazon had rejected calls by the Teamsters union to negotiate with drivers, saying drivers are employed by third-party logistics firms and are not its own staff.

The Christmas strikes followed an earlier authorisation vote by members of the Teamsters.

CNBC reported that staff at the Garner, North Carolina, facility will cast their ballots from 10 to 15 Feb, according to a Tuesday post on X by Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment, the group seeking to organize staffers.

An NLRB spokesperson reportedly confirmed an in-person election will be held on those dates at the site, which employs about 4,300 workers.

Amazon made clear it hoped to defeat this latest unionisation drive.

“We’ve always said that we want our employees to have their voices heard, and we hope and expect this process allows for that,” aAmazon spokesperson Eileen Hards told CNBC in a statement. “We believe our employees favour opportunities to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team.”

Amazon has still not formally recognised its first-ever facility to vote to unionise in Staten Island in 2022.

The company has filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board and in September filed a federal lawsuit challenging the NLRB’s constitutionality.

Garner, North Carolina

The Garner, North Carolina warehouse is located in a suburb about 10 miles south of Raleigh.

A grassroots group led by current and former employees known as CAUSE, has been working to organise Amazon employees at the warehouse, CNBC noted.

CAUSE filed for a union election last month, saying in a press release that 30 percentr of workers at the North Carolina site signed union authorisation cards, which is the necessary threshold to trigger an NLRB vote.

Organisers are reportedly seeking to boost wages and improve working conditions.

If the election is successful, the warehouse, known as RDU1, would be only the second Amazon site in the US to unionise.

A handful of union elections were held at Amazon warehouses in the US in recent years but employees have either rejected unionisation, or the results continue to be disputed in lengthy court battles.