Amazon Union Vote Is Set for October at Warehouse Near Albany, New York

Matt Day, Bloomberg News

A worker loads boxes onto a pallet at an Amazon fulfillment center on Prime Day in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., on Monday, June 21, 2021. Amazon.com Inc.'s annual Prime Day sale, which begins Monday, arrives as the world grapples with the lingering effects of the pandemic. , Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A group of Amazon.com Inc. workers seeking to unionize a company facility near Albany, New York, will vote on the matter beginning Oct. 12, the National Labor Relations board said on Wednesday.

Workers at the ALB1 warehouse in the town of Schodack in August submitted a petition to hold an election. The group, which has affiliated with the upstart Amazon Labor Union, is seeking higher wages and other improvements to working conditions.

“We are going to win,” Heather Goodall, lead organizer of the effort, said in a text message. Goodall added that she and her coworkers would demand Amazon pay them the amount of money the company spent on its effort to persuade employees to vote against the union. “If Amazon has millions to spend on ‘employee relations,’ AKA union busters,” she said, “they can afford to pay us back for wasting our time.”

Voting will be conducted over four days in a tent in the facility’s parking lot, NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado said in an email. Ballot counting will begin Oct. 18 in Albany. The NLRB says the proposed union includes about 400 employees at the facility.

“We remain skeptical that there are a sufficient number of legitimate signatures to support the union’s petition for an election, but the NLRB is moving forward,” Amazon spokesperson Paul Flaningan said in an emailed statement. “We’ve always said that we want our employees to have their voices heard and we hope and expect this process allows for that.”

Amazon is challenging the successful union drive at a warehouse in New York’s Staten Island. The ALU in April won the right to represent more than 8,000 workers at the JFK8 facility there. An NLRB official recommended rejecting Amazon’s objections to the result, but the company has indicated it will appeal rather than start negotiating a contract with workers. Amazon Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy said last week that there were “a lot of disturbing irregularities” during the vote.

The ALU lost a second election at another Staten Island facility but has expanded beyond New York City through affiliations with previously independent organizing efforts in Schodack and Campbellsville, Kentucky.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the election timing, citing Amazon.

(Updated with comment from union organizer in the third paragraph.)