By Mark Satinoff

STATEN ISLAND, New York, August 1, 2024 — In an election for officers of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU)–International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Local 1, held in July, the Democratic Reform Caucus (DRC) candidates won all the positions. The union represents workers at Amazon’s giant JFK8 warehouse here. The results will be finalized after an August 6 deadline for filing objections.

In a post on its Instagram account the reform caucus released the following statement:

“We are extremely excited to announce that every candidate on the Democratic Reform Caucus slate won decisively in our union’s leadership elections. All 15 of our slate candidates — 4 candidates for our union’s executive board, and 11 for our union’s constitution committee, have won the ALU-IBT Local 1 officer elections!

“After more than two years of fighting to reform our union to make it more democratic, transparent, and militant, we are relieved to finally be able to turn our full attention toward bringing Amazon to the table and winning an incredible contract.

“The movement to organize Amazon is still growing rapidly, and for us, our Teamster allies, and rank-and-file members, much of this is uncharted territory. We’ll be communicating in the upcoming days our transition plan and how we expect to execute the tremendous task ahead of us. For now, we’re grateful to our members, supporters, and movement allies for standing with us and making this win possible.”

The ALU was the first and, as yet, the only union to win a representation election at an Amazon facility in the United States. That vote took place in March 2022, more than two years ago. Then, among 8,325 eligible voters, nearly 5,000 ballots were cast. The ALU won by a margin of 523 votes, with nearly 55% of workers voting for the union.

The recent election was the first opportunity for the ranks of the union to choose their own officers democratically. The previous ALU president, Chris Smalls, did not run for office but backed another slate of candidates.

Low turnout a danger sign

In a danger sign for the union, the number of workers who cast ballots was very low, some 5% of the current workforce of about 5,300. In June, ALU members at JFK8 voted to affiliate with the Teamsters union. The turnout for that vote was also low but 848 workers cast ballots as compared to 264 in the leadership election.

The new officers are Connor Spence, a 6+ year Amazon veteran and co-founder of the ALU, president; Brima Sylla, vice-president; Kathleen “Kat” Cole, secretary-treasurer; and Sultana Hossain, recording secretary. Sylla is a Liberian immigrant whose proficiency in seven languages has been instrumental in the ALU’s ability to reach out to the multinational workforce.

Every candidate on the reform caucus slate received more than 50% of the votes cast with the remaining votes split between two other slates of candidates. Claudia Ashterman, who was backed by former president Smalls, received 59 votes for president. Michele Valentin Nieves, previously a member of the ALU executive board, and the third candidate, received 32 votes.

Of the 5,312 ballots sent out only 247 were mailed back and deemed eligible. Seventeen ballots were disqualified.

“Only direct non seasonal employees were eligible to vote,” Spence told World-Outlook. “Seasonal workers are not part of the bargaining unit and therefore were not eligible to participate.” Spence estimated that seasonal workers make up one-third of the workforce. “The union will fight to expand its membership to include them in the bargaining unit as well,” he added.

Asked to comment on the low voter turnout, Hossain said, “There were a number of factors. The DRC did our best to engage our co-workers every day by showing constant presence inside and outside the warehouse, handing out literature, holding mutual-aid events, and helping workers on an individual basis to appeal after unfair disciplinary action/termination, to get legal help after getting injured on the job, and to navigate Amazon’s accommodations process, amongst other things.

“The DRC wanted the officer elections to be in-person,” Hossain continued, “as the membership had never participated in a mail-in ballot prior to this election, and past in-person votes have had much greater participation.”

“That being said,” she explained, “the low turnout is reflective of the ways in which the former union leadership failed to organize an engaged and participatory membership for the last two years. It is our goal as the new leadership to organize a militant, democratic rank-and-file.”

Amazon determined to defeat union organizing

Amazon did everything in its power to defeat the union organizing drive.

When workers succeeded, the corporate giant refused to accept the election results. Amazon filed 25 objections to the election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB Region 28 director dismissed all 25 objections and certified the union in January 2023. Amazon then simply refused to recognize the NLRB decision or negotiate a contract with the ALU.

The company’s strategy has been to tie the union up in a drawn-out legal battle, draining it of valuable resources and hoping to demoralize workers through repeated delays. This has included firing union organizers, among them Spence and Hossain.

Amazon has also appealed NLRB Region 28’s ruling to the national labor board in Washington, D.C., where it has languished for more than 15 months. If the NLRB rules against Amazon, the company can appeal that ruling yet again — this time to a federal judge.

In this context, winning the first union contract at Amazon is an enormous challenge. Amazon’s tactics posed sharply the need to consolidate the ALU’s victory by reaching out to all workers at JFK8 to draw them into a functioning democratic union. A membership-wide discussion about how to overcome Amazon’s obstructionism through the use of union power was necessary.

That did not happen. While Smalls became somewhat of a public figure, featured in the news media, the work needed to truly organize the ranks of the union did not proceed. Whatever debate and discussion took place among the most committed union activists, remained largely unknown to most JFK8 workers, who were not involved.

Need to maximize rank-and-file democracy

The only way to advance workers’ efforts to organize and force the company to negotiate a contract with better pay, improved benefits, and safer job conditions, is to maximize rank-and-file democracy and participation in the union.

The Democratic Reform Caucus was formed in December 2022 in an attempt to democratize the union and push forward the effort to force Amazon to negotiate a contract.

In July 2023, the reform caucus sued the ALU, stating it had violated the union’s constitution by refusing to hold officer elections within 60 days of the union’s certification. However, before the NLRB certified the results, the previous executive board directed by Chris Smalls unilaterally changed the ALU constitution to state that leadership elections would not be held until after a contract had been ratified. The membership did not vote to make that decision.

An out-of-court settlement between the reform caucus and then-ALU-president Smalls to hold officer elections was reached last January.

The newly elected officers now face the challenge of genuinely winning the thousands of workers at JFK8 to the ALU-IBT and to a strategy that can overcome Amazon’s effort to destroy the union before a real push for a contract is ever launched. Facing this challenge was delayed by the errors of the past two years. Only the united power of the rank and file can win that fight.

Hossain emphasized the importance of “building relationships based on trust and mutual respect as a core to effective organizing. Disagreements and debate are bound to happen, and in fact is a critical aspect of true democracy, but it’s how disagreements are resolved that determines how we come out of it on the other side. Our leadership and our membership are ultimately unified by a common goal.”

Hossain continued, “Active participation and engagement of the rank-and-file membership in the union is how we will force Amazon to negotiate with us, and that is only achieved through democratic worker organization. The role of union leadership is to help each and every worker recognize their own power to transform their working conditions and to challenge Amazon’s extreme exploitation of their labor. Our strategy of grassroots organizing involves establishing a strong shop steward network, worker-led collective action, and participation of the membership in all structural and strategic decision-making.”

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