Amazon objecting to union’s victory in New York, alleging interference

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board is giving Amazon until April 22 to back up its objections to last week’s election in New York.

Amazon.com accused the new union at a New York City warehouse of threatening workers unless they voted to organise, an assertion an attorney for the labour group called "really absurd."

(Sign up to our Technology newsletter, Today’s Cache, for insights on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, business and policy. Click here to subscribe for free.)

A second labour group, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which was losing a bid to organise an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, also filed objections on Thursday to that union election.

The U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is giving Amazon until April 22 to back up its objections to last week'selection in New York, in which Staten Island workers voted toform the company's first U.S. union. Amazon had requested extra time to provide evidence because its objections are "substantial," it said in a filing Wednesday.

A certified election result would give organised labour a foothold in the United States' second-largest private employer, with the potential to alter how Amazon manages its finely tuned operation.

Some 55% of workers who voted in the election at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island opted to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which has demanded higher pay and job security. Since the result, U.S. workers from another 50 Amazon sites have contacted the union, the group's leader has said.

Among Amazon's planned objections to the outcome are that the ALU interfered with employees in line to vote and that long waits depressed turnout, Amazon's filing said. Some 58% of eligible voters cast ballots in person over several days.