Rachel Phua
Amazon Labor Union representatives and supporters turned up at the ALB1 union election rally, October 10, 2022.
On September 6, inside the million-square-foot Amazon facility known as ALB1 in Castleton-on-Hudson, about ten miles from Albany, New York, Samuel Molik was standing on a forklift about 20 feet up in the air when two wooden tables suddenly fell off a shelf and hit him on the back of his head. Instead of being sent to the hospital immediately, Molik was brought to urgent care first, before an actual ambulance was called, he said.
“I now have a severe head injury,” Molik, 35, told the Prospect at a pre-election rally urging workers at ALB1 to join the Amazon Labor Union. “I just got out of the neurologist’s office this past Friday. I have to get an MRI and I don’t know how long I’m going to be out of work. And it’s entirely because this place is so unsafe.”
More than a month after the accident, Molik is still waiting for his workers’ compensation. Amazon denied his initial claim, and he has hired a lawyer to fight the decision.
“They’d rather spend $3,200 a day on a union-busting consultant … rather than the $15 that it costs to give us the hard hats,” Molik said, citing the amount Amazon previously paid employee relations consultants to persuade employees in Bessemer, Alabama, not to unionize.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment, but in a statement to WAMC, the company said that allegations about missing hard hats were false.
Molik is far from the only worker fed up with the company profiting off the backs of their labor. A growing number of employees, who are paid between $16 and $26 an hour, believe the e-commerce giant—which made $33.4 billion in net income last year—can easily afford to raise wages and improve safety protocols in a space where they’re forced to work as quickly as they can to meet productivity quotas.
Now, Amazon workers across the country are fighting back through union drives and walkouts to demand better working conditions.
Heather Goodall, a 50-year-old former insurance agent and the lead organizer at the Albany warehouse, saw red flags early on. The Castleton-on-Hudson native joined Amazon in February as a way to suss out working conditions for her two high school–aged sons. She thought both could end up working at the warehouse, and after seeing people who worked there get bruises, wanted to experience it for herself. Only two days after she started, she was operating a forklift to fetch large packages “up to 20 feet in the air” despite little training, Goodall said.
It’s not just machinery. Goodall has seen boxes stacked in ways they could topple easily and wiring protruding out of shelves. A month after she took photos of these precarious objects in July, with the approval of a manager, to send to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), she was punished by her superiors with a final warning letter.
Tia Leanza, another organizer at Castleton-on-Hudson, said she suffered a hernia from lifting heavy packages, two months after getting a job at the warehouse in 2019. “Everything that we deal with is at least 50 pounds. So there’s always the risk of back injuries, arm injuries, shoulder injuries,” Leanza said.
Rachel Phua
Amazon worker Samuel Molik suffered a head injury in September after two tables fell and hit him.
The Castleton-on-Hudson fulfillment center, which handles heavy and bulky items and employs over 800 workers, had the highest injury rate among all Amazon facilities in New York state in 2021, with nearly 1 in 5 full-time workers getting seriously injured, according to a report by the coalition New Yorkers for a Fair Economy that studied OSHA data. It was also one of three Amazon warehouses in the U.S. that caught fire last week.
Since this summer, OSHA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York have been investigating several Amazon warehouses, including the Castleton-on-Hudson site, for safety violations.
Seth Goldstein, a lawyer who has been helping the Amazon Labor Union, said workers are upset they are being made to toil in such an unsafe environment. “The employer seems to spend most of its time trying to union-bust rather than discuss plans to make ALB1 a safer place,” he said.
Organizers hope their colleagues come to see that a union could help prevent further accidents. One state bill they are advocating for is the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, currently waiting for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature. “We’re dealing with combustible fluids. We’re dealing with lithium batteries,” said Kimberly Lane, another Amazon worker and organizer at ALB1. “Accidents happen. We need that protection act to help us.”
Besides safety demands, the organizers also want higher wages, specifically a $10 hike to $27 per hour. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology living wage calculator showed that a living wage in Albany for working adults with children is at least $20 per hour.
Longer breaks are also on the table, something at least one worker said would encourage him to vote for the union. “The time that we are able to get out from the building, you have like six or four minutes left to do whatever you need to do on your [15-minute] break,” said Naijel Carter, who has been working at the facility for five weeks.
If the vote obtains a majority, ALB1 will be the second Amazon warehouse to unionize in the country. Voting started last Wednesday, and the results are due on Tuesday. It comes after the first successful union bid at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York, this April. A second, smaller facility in Staten Island failed in its union vote this summer.
Victory isn’t certain. In late September, Amazon raised workers’ pay by $1 per hour—even though it is illegal to do so during a union election—to an average of $19 an hour, about $4 more than the typical warehouse worker. Since ALB1’s unionizing efforts became known, workers have been put through captive-audience meetings and told about expensive union dues and that the union won’t be able to protect workers. And even if they do unionize, Amazon could dispute the results as it has done with the Staten Island facility, and refuse to negotiate a contract.
“The Amazon Labor Union stands as a movement for everybody.”
ALB1 is not the only Amazon warehouse where workers are fighting for their collective rights. Last Tuesday, a fulfillment center in Southern California’s Moreno Valley became the first in the state to file for a union election. Last week, workers from facilities in Illinois, California, and Georgia went on strike during October Prime Week. The movement has spread overseas as well, with workers in Germany striking last week, and those in the U.K. potentially walking out next.
“Workers are standing together and they’re showing that we’re not going to just take anything anymore,” said Chris Smalls, the president of the Amazon Labor Union, who was at the ALB1 rally last week.
After a fire at the Staten Island facility, over 100 workers staged a walkout to protest unsafe working conditions, demanding that they be sent home with pay. Amazon suspended about 80 of those workers the next day. The union filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board.
Goldstein, who said he has submitted about 200 unfair labor practice charges on the ALU’s behalf, is hoping the NLRB will eventually issue an injunction against Amazon. “The Amazon Labor Union stands as a movement for everybody … if these oligarchs are permitted to get away with [taking advantage of workers], then I think that is dangerous for everybody.”
Last Friday’s strike at the Amazon Air regional hub in San Bernardino, California, was the center’s second in three months. In August, about 150 workers walked off their jobs for a day to demand that Amazon raise their pay by $5 an hour. The company only raised it by $1 the following month.
“That’s not going to cut it,” said Rex Evans, one of the organizers who has worked at the facility for about two years as a ramp agent. About 250 people work at the facility at any one time, he said. “Gas is going up, rent is going up, food prices are going up. Everything is going up except for wages … so we gave them an ultimatum. We need to have $5, or we’re walking out.”
Evans, who makes $18.80 an hour, said many colleagues supported a second strike, especially after Amazon brought in external consultants to talk to workers. “Two weeks ago when they offered us that dollar, even those that were scared are now on board with a strike. When they found out that these employee relations people who are union busters … they’re really mad,” he said, adding that unionization is “not off the table.” The workers also demanded a safer work environment and heat breaks after workers had to work through a severe heat wave in September.
Despite the poor working conditions and retaliation at ALB1, leaving Amazon is not an option for the organizers, who say they are here to fight for their co-workers.
“These are workers that don’t have a lot of options to get to other job interviews. They can’t take an Uber back and forth, and they can’t afford to be out of work. So they stay hoping that things will change,” said Goodall. “So if there’s an opportunity to support each other, and to bring those better working conditions … that was the deciding factor.”
