Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) workers on Staten Island roundly rejected a bid to unionize last Monday, just weeks after organizers for the Amazon Labor Union managed to pull off an upset victory at the larger JFK8 facility nearby.
According to the National Labor Relations Board, workers cast 380 ballots in favor of unionizing and 618 voted against, with the anti-union cause winning by a hefty 62% margin.
Both Amazon and the ALU have until this Monday to file any objections to the results. A lawyer for the ALU told the Wall Street Journal that the union was currently assessing whether or not efforts to challenge last Monday's outcome.
"There's no way we're going to stop or let this bring us down," said ALU co-founder Derrick Palmer to organizers outside the NLRB office in Brooklyn upon hearing the results.
"It's going to do the complete opposite. We're going to go ten times harder."
The outcome represents a considerable victory for Amazon. The e-commerce giant has a considerable sum on anti-union campaigns to protect its highly automated, high turnover business model which relies heavily on hourly labor.
Amazon "is glad that our team at LDJ5 were able to have their voices heard. We look forward to continuing to work directly together as we strive to make every day better for our employees," said company spokesperson Kelly Nantel in a statement.
Whether the outcome speaks to the Amazon Labor Union's future efforts to organize workers at the e-commerce giant's facilities across New York and elsewhere remains unclear. However, ALU organizers considered a successful unionization bid at LDJ5 a crucial next step in the wake of last month's victory at JFK8.
However, the group had a much thinner presence at LD, a weakness it tried to mitigate through outreach efforts ahead of the election. Nevertheless, activists admitted that these efforts were largely unsuccessful to the New York Times.
Additionally, workers at LD expressed reservations about some of the ALU's ambitions, such as a $30 hourly wage. Moreover, a larger share of LD workers works part-time, making them inherently less invested in their workplace and putting them past many perks of union membership such as improved health and retirement plans.
"Some of them are young - I don't think they even know what a union is," Michael Aguilar, an LD worker who voted in favor of organizing told the New York Times. ""I believe they thought Amazon was just a stepping stone, and then collect money from this place and then go into their own careers. They didn't understand why they would want it if it's just temporary to them."
Christian Smalls and the aforementioned Palmer started the Amazon Labor Union last year. Without connections to the broader labor movement, the group initially had to lean on crowdfunding for support. However, since last month's upset victory at JFK8, the group has garnered far greater traction from within the movement.
For instance, The United Food and Commercial Workers International has lent the nascent union both resources and office space. At the same time, progressive superstar Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lent her voice to the group's cause, helping to rally workers ahead of the election.
Meanwhile, Amazon plans to challenge the validity of the results at JFK8, adding a further measure of uncertainty to the Amazon Labor Union's efforts. Concurrently, the result of a separate union bid, held at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, remains uncertain, with 416 ballots currently under contention.
Hearings on those ballots are expected in the coming weeks.