Amazon Union Effort in North Carolina Is Latest Attempt to Organize the South

Workers at a sprawling Amazon warehouse outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, have taken their first formal step forward in their fight to organize the facility. For more than two and a half years, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE) has been organizing to educate workers and build popular support for unionization at the 2 million square foot fulfillment center, known as RDU1. Now, CAUSE believe it’s gained the momentum necessary to advance its campaign: On Labor Day, organizers launched a union drive.

Over the next year, CAUSE must get at least 30 percent of an estimated 5,000 workers to sign union authorization cards, which are needed to file for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). While the road to establishing a union — and ultimately securing a fair contract — is long, the RDU1 union drive is a sign that workers’ push for fair pay and dignity will continue until conditions improve.

RDU1 workers, who are predominantly Black and Brown, are fighting for a $30 an hour starting wage, paid sick leave and a one-hour lunch break. In 2022, CAUSE organizers detailed some of their complaints to the progressive news outlet More Perfect Union, including unrealistic performance standards that led to coworkers passing out on the warehouse floor, unfair write-ups from managers who have to meet disciplinary quotas, and termination after missing work for life emergencies.

In recent years, there has been a growing push by workers and unions to “organize the South,” a region rife with anti-labor laws and politicians openly hostile to unionization. North Carolina is the second-least unionized state in the country after South Carolina, with a union membership rate of only 2.6 percent. But amid a national labor revival, unions have begun to achieve high-profile victories in the South. Earlier this year, workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the United Auto Workers — a historic victory that could galvanize future attempts.

As D. Taylor, president of the hospitality union UNITE HERE, told Politico in 2023, “If you change the South, you change America.”

Indeed, the stakes are high. If CAUSE is successful, RDU1 would be only the second Amazon warehouse to unionize. Several others have tried. When workers at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island voted to form the Amazon Labor Union in April 2022, it inspired a wave of organizing at Amazon warehouses across the country — and spurred the company to intensify its union-busting efforts. Disclosures show that Amazon spent more than $14 million on anti-union consultants in 2022, a hefty sum that blows many other companies’ union-busting spending out of the water.

Subsequent campaigns to unionize were defeated at facilities in Albany, New York; Bessemer, Alabama; and Ontario, California; as well as at a second Staten Island warehouse. Organizers have pointed to Amazon’s union-busting activities as reason for the failures to replicate JFK8’s historic win, including a string of disciplinary actions Amazon has taken against employees involved in organizing activities. The NLRB has filed multiple formal complaints against the company, alleging unlawful labor practices. Amazon has denied all allegations.

In November 2023, a judge found that Amazon had violated labor law by retaliating against employees who supported the Amazon Labor Union. “The decision also found Amazon unlawfully interrogated employees, disparaged the union by using appeals to racial prejudice and derogatory racial stereotyping, and prohibited employees from distributing Union literature and confiscating Union literature from employees,” stated a press release. In a February legal filing, submitted as part of a federal lawsuit brought by Amazon, SpaceX, Trader Joe’s and Starbucks, Amazon argued that the NLRB itself is unconstitutional.

It’s no surprise, then, that Amazon has been putting up a fight at RDU1. Raleigh-area newspaper The News & Observer reported that CAUSE’s efforts have faced roadblocks like high employee turnover and efforts by the company to undermine support, including “multiple voluntary informational meetings at RDU1 during which unionization is cast in a negative light.”

Amazon also has a policy in place at its facilities that restricts off-duty employees from lingering on the property, impeding workers from discussing things like unionization. In December 2021, the NLRB reached a settlement with Amazon in which the company agreed to retract the rule, which the NLRB deemed “unlawful.” But just months later, according to another NLRB complaint, Amazon resumed the practice. In September 2024, the labor board ruled that Amazon had violated the terms of its settlement agreement and ordered the company to “cease and desist from maintaining policies that unlawfully prohibit off-duty employee access to nonwork areas.”

Despite Amazon’s fierce opposition, labor advocates are notching wins across the country. Just this month, hundreds of Amazon delivery drivers in Queens, New York, announced they had joined the Teamsters and demanded that Amazon recognize their union. Efforts to strengthen labor protections have also been successful outside of unionization attempts: In May 2023, Minnesota enacted the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, thanks to a dedicated campaign led largely by Somali-American immigrant workers. The strongest of its kind, the law requires companies, including Amazon, to provide written documentation to warehouse employees about their performance standards and bars them from penalizing workers who fail to meet undisclosed quotas.

CAUSE says it has already received hundreds of signed union authorization cards at RDU1. In an interview with The News & Observer, CAUSE organizer and co-founder Mary Hill was firm in her belief that the union would receive the necessary support to advance to the next stage: “We’re going to win,” she said.