Amazon staff arrive with bureaucracy to unionize on the NLRB place of job in Brooklyn, New York, October 25, 2021.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Amazon tapped an influential consulting and polling company with shut ties to Democratic political teams to lend a hand the corporate thwart a crucial unionization effort at a Staten Island, New York, warehouse, CNBC has realized.
World Technique Crew, which served as a polling spouse for a pro-Biden tremendous PAC forward of the 2020 election, has been operating for Amazon since a minimum of overdue ultimate 12 months to supply anti-union fabrics, in step with paperwork seen by way of CNBC.
Staff on the success heart, referred to as JFK8, started casting their ballots Friday. The vote on whether or not to unionize wrapped up Wednesday, and the Nationwide Exertions Family members Board is within the technique of counting votes.
Amazon has fought aggressively to overcome again unionization efforts on Staten Island, simply because it has in Bessemer, Alabama, the place staff simply concluded a 2d union vote after the preliminary one failed ultimate 12 months. Warehouse staffers around the corporate amped up their activism all through the Covid pandemic, difficult more secure operating stipulations and higher pay.
At JFK8, Amazon’s biggest warehouse in New York Town, and 3 different amenities on Staten Island, GSG has put in combination movies that includes Amazon managers and managers, and has disbursed flyers to staffers. Amazon has delivered anti-union displays that staff had been required to take a seat thru at conferences, which have been ceaselessly attended by way of representatives from GSG, in step with an individual accustomed to the subject.
GSG workers have additionally been tracking the social media accounts of Amazon Exertions Union organizers, mentioned the individual, who requested to not be named because of confidentiality. ALU is a fledgling group, made up of present and previous corporate workers, that is looking for to constitute JFK8 staff.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to touch upon GSG’s paintings in Staten Island. Representatives from GSG did not reply to a request for remark.
An anti-union web site
The movies and published fabrics disbursed by way of GSG try to discourage workers from balloting to enroll in a union. They use words like “One crew, operating in combination” and “Unpack it: Get the info about unions,” a slogan repeated on Amazon’s anti-union web site – unpackjfk8.com. One of the fabrics tout the numerous advantages that Amazon already supplies, together with well being care, holiday time and alternatives for bettering task talents.
GSG workers in New York, Connecticut and Washington, D.C., had been concerned with the challenge, the paperwork display. Barbara Russell, Amazon’s international director of worker family members, helps to supervise the paintings with GSG.
Turning to the sort of distinguished consulting company underscores Amazon’s stage of shock concerning the union vote and the prospective precedent it might set. GSG began in 1995 as a boutique polling company, and has since expanded to offer analysis, public family members and consulting products and services. Alongside the way in which, it is accumulated a high-profile roster of political and company purchasers, together with Google and Fb.
Staff and supporters grasp indicators after submitting a petition soliciting for an election to shape a union outdoor the Nationwide Exertions Family members Board (NLRB) regional place of job within the Brooklyn Borough of New York, on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Photographs
Running for Amazon in an anti-union capability may pose an issue for GSG as a result of its shut association with the Democratic Birthday celebration, which has historically been an recommend for exertions unions. The company even carried out polling for New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James, an Amazon critic who accused the corporate of unlawfully firing Christian Smalls, now the president of ALU. GSG additionally supplied polling products and services for a department of the Provider Staff Global Union, one of the crucial biggest exertions unions within the nation.
In line with GSG’s web site, the company “led polling for dozens of profitable campaigns and political organizations in 2018 and 2020 to safe nowadays’s Democratic majority in the United States Area of Representatives and US Senate.” It used to be the polling spouse for Priorities USA, an ideal PAC that subsidized President Joe Biden, and has labored for Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Joe Manchin and Ed Markey, its web site says.
GSG has lengthy been a well known title on Capitol Hill, and a decade in the past hired Jen Psaki, who is now Biden’s White Area press secretary.
Amazon, in the meantime, has been a significant goal for most sensible Democrats like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, who’ve time and again slammed Amazon for skirting taxes and for allegedly attractive in anti-competitive conduct.
It isn’t the primary time Amazon has introduced in a 3rd celebration to fend off unionization efforts. The corporate employed a minimum of 3 anti-union specialists all through the primary Bessemer election ultimate 12 months, and in the past labored with an anti-union marketing consultant that have been utilized by Trump Global Lodges.
WATCH: Amazon secures sufficient votes to defeat the unionization pressure at an Alabama warehouse
