Fox News reports that "a group of Amazon.com Inc. workers in New York City's Staten Island has withdrawn a petition to hold a union election, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Labor Relations Board confirmed on Friday.
"The group, known as the Amazon Labor Union, filed its petition last month, joining an escalating push by unions to organize Amazon's vast network of warehouse workers."
National Public Radio reports that "union organizers had said in late October that it delivered more than 2,000 signed union-support cards to the NLRB's Brooklyn office after launching the effort in April. That's a major step in authorizing a vote that could set up the first union at the nation's largest online retailer.
"As part of its petition to hold a vote, organizers must submit signatures from at least 30% of the roughly 5,500 employees who the union says work at four adjoining Amazon facilities that it seeks to represent under collective bargaining."
- KC's View:
-
People may not be commenting on why they withdrew the petition, but it seems pretty obvious from here - they didn't have the votes.
Doesn't mean that the petition can't be refiled. It can be. But the organizers are going to need to have their act together, and know, as best they can, that their numbers are going to add up. Because Amazon has had some luck beating back these unionization efforts.
