The Labor Board rejected Amazon's appeal of the union win.
An additional director's approval is required, but if that happens, the Amazon Labor Union will become the first in the firm to be officially recognized.
A labor union at one of Amazon's New York facilities just won a significant win, and federal labor authorities want to overturn Amazon's objections.
The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) won its first election in April, but the process has been stalled for months due to an objection hearing Amazon has been dragging out.
An NLRB hearing officer said on Thursday that the agency plans to reject Amazon's objections, paving the way for the union to become the first registered bargaining unit inside the company's huge e-commerce empire.
The NLRB's Kayla Blado said via email that the deadline for further exemption filings was September 16.
Workers at Amazon win a historic union election.
While we haven't finished looking at the ruling yet, we can say that we're disagreeing with it strongly and plan to appeal, "in a statement, Amazon's Kelly Nantel said. "We believe the election result does not fairly represent the will of the majority of our team because, as we showed throughout the hearing with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pages of documentation, the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the election outcome.
(Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, is the owner of The Washington Post.)
Leader of the ALU Chris Smalls released a statement in which he expressed relief at the positive verdict. "We're crossing our fingers that the NLRB approves it so that we can secure some rights for our employees here and make sure they're safe."
Labor groups have been working hard this summer to unionize Amazon, so this announcement is a big victory for them. Amazon employees at a warehouse near Albany, New York, are expected to vote on unionization in the coming months, while new organizing drives have emerged in Kentucky, California, and North Carolina.
Albany, New York Amazon employees participate in a union election.
Amazon has claimed that the regional NLRB office is prejudiced against the corporation, and it is probable that Amazon may file a lawsuit over the decision. Its strategies might lengthen the time it takes to negotiate a contract, which could be months or even years.
ALU is a young, autonomous group that has been stretched thin in recent months as scores of employees have accused Amazon of unfair labor practices. Established labor unions such as the American Federation of Teachers have committed support to ALU. Shortly after their victory in May on Staten Island, the union suffered another electoral defeat at a smaller New York City warehouse.
ALU attorney Seth Goldstein said in a statement, "This was an atrocious union-busting effort by Amazon, and we're demanding the corporation come to the table and negotiate in faith as it's obliged to under the law."
