Amazon workers in New York City vote to form first union at retail giant

Amazon workers at a Staten Island, New York processing facility won a historic vote on Friday to form the first-ever collective bargaining unit at the e-commerce giant. 

With 2,654 votes in favor and 2,131 votes against, the overwhelming victory will allow more than 8,000 workers at the facility to team up with the Amazon Labor Union. The ALU was formed last year by Chris Smalls, a process assistant at the warehouse who was fired in March 2020 for organizing protests over Amazon's COVID-19 protocols.

"Amazon wanted to make me the face of the whole unionizing efforts against them…welp, there you go!," Smalls wrote on Twitter shortly before the vote tally was finalized. "We worked, had fun and made history."