Depending on the time of day, Smalls and his colleagues distribute not only flyers but also coffee, pizza or freshly roasted meat from the grill. The whole thing is financed by a “GoFundMe” campaign that collects money from all parts of the country.
Smalls and the other men and women in front of the gate wear red hoodies emblazoned with the white letters ALU: “Amazon Labor Union”. An Amazon union, that is probably the nightmare of the company founder Jeff Bezos.
Bezos was able to fend off a similar attempt in the spring in anti-union Alabama. But New York is more optimistic. Smalls has already collected enough signatures that employees can at least vote on the introduction of a union. At least 50 percent of those involved have to vote for the union for it to become a reality.
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Smalls is convinced: “This is New York, not Alabama. New Yorkers are different. The energy here is different. ”In addition, in these times when companies are desperately looking for employees, the bargaining position of workers has fundamentally changed:“ The workers realize their value. And they want to be paid accordingly! “
The pandemic has changed the balance of power
The new power of the workers is making itself felt across the United States. Not only at Amazon, but also at Starbucks, employees want to organize unions. At the agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere, the unionized employees have been on strike for two weeks and have already achieved wage increases and better pensions for more than 10,000 people.
In the Oreos and Kellogg factories, too, workers are on strike for better conditions. And even in Hollywood, production almost came to a standstill because cameramen, lighting technicians, and costume and mask assistants threatened to stop working. Only at the last moment did the studios give in.
Professor Anat Lechner from the NYU Stern School of Business is convinced: “This is just the beginning”. Many corporations had had a great time in the pandemic, and now the employees wanted to get their share of it. There have been 177 strikes since the beginning of the year, significantly more than in other years. “The employers no longer have the upper hand,” explains Lechner. The mood in the country has never been as union-friendly as it is today.
“The pandemic has changed the balance of power,” says Professor Michelle Kaminski from Michigan State University, who specializes in trade unions. “Covid has shown how important the workers are,” she says. “The workers are tired of being mistreated. They want to be treated with dignity, and that is not the case in many places. “
Kaminski is watching Smalls’ attempt to unionise the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island with great interest. “That could have a signal effect,” says the labor law expert, but also warns that something like this can take years because of the laws in the USA. In addition, companies still have the chance to convince employees in meetings during working hours that a union is not necessary and only costs unnecessary fees.
Christian Smalls also knows that he still has to do a lot of persuading in Staten Island: “A lot of younger people have never heard of trade unions. They don’t even know what they’re good for, ”he reports. “And some are afraid that Amazon will take revenge if they stand up for a union,” knows the resigned Amazon employee who has sued his dismissal and is still waiting for the outcome of the process.
Corporations want to lure workers
Amazon will probably want to avoid a public conflict. Because the company urgently needs employees. It was only in mid-September that Amazon announced that it would hire another 125,000 people in the US alone. It won’t be easy: According to the US Department of Labor, there are currently more than ten million vacant jobs in the United States. There are only eight million job seekers.
Amazon wants to hire another 125,000 people in the US alone.
(Photo: Reuters)
In order to attract and retain employees, several large US corporations have voluntarily increased their wages, pay bonuses when starting a job or take over university fees for studying on the side.
Retailer Walmart raised its hourly wages three times in 2021 alone, most recently to $ 16.40. Starbucks, Amazon and Target all increased their hourly wages to $ 15. In expensive places like New York this corresponds to the minimum wage anyway, which is barely enough to live on. But in other regions you can finance an apartment and food with 15 dollars an hour.
And it is by no means just ordinary workers who have been able to negotiate better terms in the end. Even with qualified jobs there is rumbling, and the employees demand better or different conditions: Lisa Michaels (name changed by the editorial team), for example, never thought that she could ever put so much pressure on her boss. The 25-year-old fled her small apartment in San Francisco last spring and stayed with her sister in Denver.
There was more space there and even a small garden. She was able to do her job as a salesperson for a software company from anywhere, as the company had closed its offices comparatively quickly and heralded the “work from anywhere” phase.
When the company ordered everyone back to San Francisco, the top management encountered unexpected resistance. “I didn’t want to go back to San Francisco,” says Michaels. “And my whole team felt the same way.”
So all salespeople have signaled that they would look for other jobs if they were forced back to head office. “And suddenly everyone was very friendly and courteous. Because the company cannot afford to lose all of us at once, “she says, and knows:” That would have been unthinkable in the past. “
Labor rights expert Kaminski advises companies to listen carefully to their employees in order to understand what they expect from their employer and what potential problems lie. “You have to create a work environment that is not physically or mentally harmful,” she says.
“There hasn’t been a better moment in the past 30 years!”
On the other hand, she advises employees to seize the opportunity. “There hasn’t been a better moment in the past 30 years!” She is convinced. And if they wanted their salary increases to last and not just be cashed back in the next downturn, then they should join a union as soon as possible, advises Kaminski.
NYU professor Lechner is also more pessimistic in the long term when it comes to rising salaries. “It could turn out to be a short-term victory for the workers,” she says.
Lechner warns that the higher wages will motivate companies even more to automate their processes and rely on artificial intelligence. “Then millions of jobs could be lost again,” says Lechner. Until then, the employees can still enjoy the good times for a few more years.
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