Labor Board Official Says Amazon Effort to Overturn Staten Island Warehouse Election Should Be Rejected

A federal labor official who presided over Amazon’s challenge to a union victory at a Staten Island warehouse has recommended that the challenge be rejected, the National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday.

The labor board official, known as a hearing officer, concluded in a report that Amazon’s objections to the election should be set aside and that the Amazon Labor Union should be certified to represent workers at the warehouse, known as JFK8.

A regional director of the labor board will issue a formal ruling in the coming weeks or months after considering the hearing officer’s report. Regional directors typically follow a hearing officer’s recommendation in such cases, but Amazon could still appeal to the labor board in Washington if the regional director’s ruling affirms the election result.

Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said that the company was reviewing the report but that “we strongly disagree with the conclusion and intend to appeal.”

The Amazon Labor Union said that it was pleased with the findings but that its members “understand that this is just the beginning of a much longer fight.” It urged the labor board to certify the election results and require Amazon to negotiate with the union.

The election this year at the Staten Island warehouse was the first time Amazon warehouse workers in the United States voted in favor of forming a union. The labor board announced on April 1 that the Amazon Labor Union had won the election at JFK8 by more than a 10-point margin. Roughly 4,800 employees cast votes out of more than 8,300 who were eligible.

The union was not affiliated with an established labor organization, and its victory was considered a long shot. Amazon held hundreds of mandatory anti-union meetings with employees in the run-up to the election and sent them frequent texts and posted signs throughout the warehouse urging them to vote no.

In its objections to the election, Amazon argued that the labor board had conducted the vote unfairly and that the union had coerced workers into supporting it. The hearing officer found that there was little evidence for either claim and that the material Amazon had presented did not indicate that the outcome of the election had been altered.

For example, Amazon accused the labor board of failing to control the news media presence near the voting area. The hearing officer concluded that there was no evidence that the presence of the news media had pressured workers to vote one way or another, or that it discouraged them from voting. In any case, the hearing officer wrote in the report, it had been up to Amazon to tell members of the news media to leave its property if it felt their presence was problematic.

Similarly, Amazon accused the union of disrupting and shutting down its anti-union meetings and of giving workers marijuana in exchange for their votes. The hearing officer concluded that neither action had interfered with the election.

Given the volume of anti-union material at the warehouse, the hearing officer wrote, Amazon had not had a problem communicating its message despite some disruptions to its meetings.

As for the marijuana, the report concluded that the union had distributed it to workers, but it said Amazon “failed to establish” that the union “gave away marijuana to employees ‘in return for their support in the election.’”