New York already has thousands of Amazon workers — and some are unionizing to demand better conditions

Amazon has yet to break ground on its new Queens-based office park, which the company is referring to as a “second headquarters,” but it already has a large footprint in New York City.

At a hearing before New York’s City Council on Wednesday, Amazon executives explained that HQ2 was an expansion of its “already significant presence” in the city. “Many people are surprised to learn that we already have thousands of employees in New York City across our retail, operations, and web services teams,” Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said in his opening remarks to the council. More than 2,500 of those employees work at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. According to Huseman, they “make an average of $17.50 to $23 per hour and receive world-class benefits.”

But on Tuesday night, those very workers announced their plans to form a union. Citing inadequate pay, 12-hour shifts, and impossible performance quotas, the workers are using the company’s plans to expand in New York — and the $3 billion in tax breaks that it’s receiving from the city and state governments — as leverage.

Some of those workers attended a press conference before the City Council hearing, where they described uncomfortable — and occasionally dangerous — conditions at the company’s Staten Island warehouse.

“Ever since they opened, management has forced everyone at the warehouse to work 12-hour shifts for five or six days a week,” Rashad Long, an employee who has been working at the warehouse since October, said in a statement read by a colleague.

Long said his daily commute was four hours round-trip, and that Amazon had failed to provide warehouse workers with transportation to the facility despite having promised to do so. (The warehouse is inaccessible by subway and is more than 40 minutes away from the Staten Island Ferry by bus, making the commute difficult for those who don’t have a car or live in other boroughs.)

“Health and safety at the facility is also a huge issue,” Long’s statement read. In addition to long hours and inadequate pay, Long mentioned safety concerns including broken sprinklers and poor temperature control. “Product bins are overstuffed and our breaks are few and far between. The third and fourth floors are so hot that I sweat through my whole shift, even when it’s freezing cold outside. We have asked the company to provide air conditioning for us, but they told us that the robots inside can’t work in cold weather, so there’s nothing they can do about it.”

In a statement to Vox, an Amazon spokesperson said the company respects employees’ right to join a union but noted that the company encourages workers to bring up concerns “directly.”

“Amazon maintains an open-door policy that encourages employees to bring their comments, questions, and concerns directly to their management team for discussion and resolution,” Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty told Vox’s Alexia Fernández Campbell via email. “We firmly believe this direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the needs of our workforce.”

Lighty also denied that conditions at the warehouse were dangerous, saying that a city-sanctioned fire director is “on-site at all times to consistently monitor the systems and run tests,” and added that employees are prohibited from working more than 60 hours a week but are eligible for overtime.

But in an interview with Bloomberg, which first reported the unionization effort, warehouse employee Sharon Bleach said she found the company’s “power hours” — during which employees are encouraged to move quickly and are incentivized with raffle tickets — insulting. “Every day, they’re changing the goal — the finish line is changed every day,” Bleach said.

At the hearing, several members of the City Council grilled Huseman on the conditions at the Staten Island warehouse, which the company refers to as a “fulfillment center.” According to Huseman, all employees there have health insurance and are eligible for “the same benefits” as office workers, including 20 weeks of paid family leave. But when he was asked whether he could guarantee that Amazon workers in New York City would not be required to work for more than eight hours each day, Huseman demurred.

“Right now, I’m not in a position to negotiate that,” he said.

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