Amazon — the second-largest employer within the United States — has made plain its want to maintain its workforce from unionizing. In one in all its warehouses, ALB1 in upstate New York, that message has grow to be crystal clear: “Don’t sign a card.” 

Photos of the brand new digital signage had been despatched to Engadget by an worker on the facility; their presence was confirmed by a second worker, David, who claims to have been on the success middle roughly since its opening in 2020. According to David (whose full identify is being withheld for concern of retribution by his employer) the carousel of anti-union posters went up right this moment and cycles between roughly seven completely different slides, every actively discouraging staff from signing a union card. “It’s on a constant loop while people punch in and punch out of their shifts,” he mentioned, “[when] they go on their breaks, or they go on their lunch. Any time that we’re going to be up towards the front.” 

Amazon has been identified to publish signage meant to discourage unionization at different services. As Vice reported in March, staff at JFK8 in Staten Island, New York had been handled to an array of posters with circumspect slogans like “Is union life for me?” and “Will the [Amazon Labor Union]’s voice replace mine?” The signage at ALB1 seems to be probably the most forceful the corporate has been with expressing its disdain for an organized workforce. The firm additionally has a monitor document of breaking labor legal guidelines and irritating organizing efforts: firing or in any other case retaliating towards staff, preventing staff from handing out pamphlets and interfering with a union election. Behind closed doorways, the corporate additionally deliberate a smear campaign towards a distinguished organizer. 

We’ve reached out to each Amazon and the National Labor Relations Board for touch upon the legality of this signage and can replace if we hear again. 

Workers at ALB1 have been pushing to type a union since a minimum of May. It’s not but clear if the organizing efforts are pointed in direction of becoming a member of Amazon Labor Union — the grassroots group that efficiently voted to unionize one of many Staten Island services in April — although primarily based on the brand new signage, administration at this success middle seems to think about the group its main menace. Nearly the entire indicators particularly reference ALU, which the corporate calls “untested and unproven”; one other even suggests becoming a member of ALU would contain giving up some measure of private privateness, although it is not clear in what means. We’ve reached out to ALU as nicely and can replace if we hear again from the group.