Amazon warehouse workers in New York have filed a union lawsuit Business and Economic News

The U.S. National Labor Relations Commission said the staff group filed the necessary paperwork on Wednesday; will review union cards in the coming days.

Amazon.com Inc. employees who want to unionize four facilities in New York have said they now have enough signatures to ask to vote.

The working group filed a motion for election on Wednesday after failing to collect the necessary signatures in the fall. In response, workers staged a demonstration in front of a huge Amazon warehouse on Staten Island, one of four locations in the district that receives orders.

A spokesman for the U.S. National Labor Relations Committee said the staff group had submitted the necessary paperwork on Wednesday and would review union cards in the coming days. An Amazon spokesperson said: “Our focus continues to be to listen directly to our employees and continually improve on their behalf.”

The U.S. has had a strong labor movement this year. Employees at Starbucks Corp. in Buffalo, New York have voted in favor of the union this month, and have been the first to do so in the company’s 50-year history. The coffee chain is now facing a trade union push in its hometown of Seattle.

Amazon, the world’s second richest man, has long been the main target of organized labor. The company defeated a high-level effort in Bessemer, Alabama, in April, but a federal official ordered the Amazon to run in the second election. Amazon employee activism is on the rise around the world. On Wednesday, employees at two Chicago warehouses were fired as a result of a wage dispute, according to TechCrunch.

One of the leaders of the Staten Island team is Chris Smalls, who worked for Amazon for more than four years. Amazon released it in 2020 for allegedly violating security guidelines; Smalls said Amazon was protesting Covid-19’s inappropriate policies. The dispute is part of an ongoing legal battle between the company and the New York Attorney General.

Earlier this year, the task force said it had collected about 2,000 signatures from staff at four Staten Island facilities where Amazon stores and packs products to send to customers. The location employs about 5,500 people and serves as a hub for New York City.

According to federal regulations, organizers must have the support of at least 30% of the staff. The group believed it had met that goal when it filed its initial application in October. But he withdrew his paperwork last month, a group lawyer said, adding that some of the people who signed the union cards were no longer working.

It was a fundamental mistake, and yet the popular effort seems to be on the way to forcing the election, a feat that the nation’s largest unions took many years to accomplish.

The Staten Island demonstration will take place on Wednesday at the large facility where Smalls worked, known as JFK8. Employees will make demands on Amazon, including restoring risk pay and a permanent agreement to allow employees to work on their phones. Amazon lifted the phone ban on the omicron variant over the weekend and killed six employees in Edwardsville, Illinois as a result of a tornado.