Source: The Seattle Times
The push to unionize Amazon has come to Seattle — but it won’t play out in the same way as other union drives.
Instead of warehouse workers, it’s focused on those Amazon employees serving lunches and stocking grocery shelves. Instead of an organizing campaign that culminates in a formal vote to determine whether the facility will unionize, this group has declared it already is a union.
Workers at an Amazon Fresh grocery store at 23rd Avenue South and South Jackson Street in Seattle’s Central District have been organizing for months to form an independent union, Amazon Workers United, according to union member and Amazon employee Joseph Fink.
The union was “created by us, for us,” Fink said, and is part of an effort to create a safer and healthier work environment for all Amazon workers. It’s demanding higher pay and better working conditions, and is spreading its message to other Amazon Fresh stores in Seattle. Fink said workers at three locations in the area are planning to form unions in their own stores.
