On Monday gig workers at an Amazon warehouse in New York’s Staten Island filed a petition to form a union, Reuters reports.
Chris Smalls, a former employee at the warehouse, led the effort to collect the 2,000 signatures needed to petition regulators for a vote to organize.
For the last 6 months, workers at the Staten Island warehouse called “JFK8” and other nearby Amazon facilities have been organizing to form an independent union called the Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
The workers, who also raised safety concerns at the start of the pandemic, are demanding higher wages, job security, safer working conditions, more paid time off and longer breaks.
According to Reuters, it is not clear when an election would be held if regulators green light the petition.
Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, beat back an effort by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) to organize its Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse.
Workers rejected joining the RWDSU by a more than 2-to-1 margin this spring, but another vote could be held as the NLRB reviews union claims that Amazon violated labor laws during the election.
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