Amazon’s first-ever union overcomes hurdles, faces new ones

Staten Island-based Amazon.com Inc distribution center union members celebrate after getting the voting results to unionise on Friday, April 1, 2022, in New York. Amazon workers in Staten Island voted to unionise, marking the first successful US organising effort in the retail giant's history and handing an unexpected win to a nascent group that fueled the union drive. — AP

NEW YORK: When a scrappy group of former and current warehouse workers on Staten Island, New York went head-to-head with Amazon in a union election, many compared it to a David and Goliath battle.

David won. And the stunning upset on Friday brought sudden exposure to the organisers and worker advocates who realised victory for the nascent Amazon Labor Union when so many other more established labour groups had failed before them, including most recently in Bessemer, Alabama.