A year after its Staten Island win, the Amazon Labor Union has endured setbacks and conflicts, including between president Chris Smalls and longtime organizers
Noam Scheiber / New York Times : Tweets: @josheidelson , @marketurbanism , @noamscheiber , @michelleimiller , @_grendan , @jacremes , @lfelizleon , and @jamieson Tweets: Josh Eidelson / @josheidelson : “Mr. Smalls broke an agreement with Ms. McAlevey... in which Mr. Smalls had committed to scale back his travel and refrain from backing elections at most other warehouses until the union was actively negotiating a contract on Staten Island.” https://www.nytimes.com/... @noamscheiber @marketurbanism : “In interviews, a dozen people who have been closely involved with the Amazon Labor Union said the union had made little progress bringing Amazon to the bargaining table, to say nothing of securing a contract” https://www.nytimes.com/... Noam Scheiber / @noamscheiber : I have a piece up today about the rift that has emerged within the Amazon Labor Union over strategy and leadership. I spent a while talking with folks on both sides of the divide to understand the points of contention. https://www.nytimes.com/... Michelle Miller / @michelleimiller : This is a story that looks like it's abt factions but is really abt resources. We should ask why ALU doesn't have resources to focus on cohesion in warehouses for bargaining AND respond to outside interest at other warehouses. https://www.nytimes.com/... Brendan O'Connor / @_grendan : this is rough reading https://www.nytimes.com/... Jacob Remes / @jacremes : There's a lot in this piece about tensions in the Amazon union, but I'd say what it's really about is how broken US labor law permits bosses to use lawfare to refuse to recognize workers' democratic choice to unionize and this create problems. https://www.nytimes.com/... Luis Feliz Leon / @lfelizleon : It's been an open secret that there have been internal struggles within the ALU, but the latest one is from credible worker organizers who dedicated countless hours to organizing their fellow workers to build a union. Solidarity. Regroup. Onwards. https://www.nytimes.com/... Dave Jamieson / @jamieson : Great reporting from @noamscheiber on divisions within the Amazon Labor Union including a split between Chris Smalls and other leaders https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2021 Staten Island election made the Amazon Labor Union the first group to organize an Amazon warehouse in the US, but this anniversary piece shows what followed: no signed contract, a divided leadership, and a president who reportedly broke his agreement with organizer McAlevey by traveling and backing elections at other warehouses before bargaining began.
The timing matters because the legal ground had just stabilized — an NLRB official rejected Amazon's attempt to overturn the Staten Island result months earlier — leaving the union's own capacity, not certification, as the binding constraint.
First-order effects
- Chris Smalls' breach of the McAlevey agreement puts him in open conflict with the longtime organizers the union depends on, at the moment it needs cohesion for bargaining most.
- With little progress bringing Amazon to the table, the ALU is stretched between consolidating for negotiations on Staten Island and responding to organizing interest at other warehouses.
Second-order effects
- Amazon gains a ready-made talking point: internal disarray lets it cast the union as unable to deliver a contract, reinforcing its resistance across facilities.
- The resource gap pushes the ALU toward the institutional muscle of the Teamsters, which had voted back in 2021 to fund and supply Amazon organizing efforts — a path that culminates in members later voting to affiliate.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, grassroots warehouse wins are not self-sustaining: certification without institutional resources leaves new unions vulnerable to leadership fights and stalled bargaining, favoring affiliation with large federations over standalone independence.
- For Amazon, the lesson is that contesting elections through the NLRB is only one front — outlasting under-resourced unions between certification and contract becomes the durable counter-strategy.
The trend: Amazon organizing is shifting from scrappy independent upstarts toward established federations like the Teamsters, as certification victories prove insufficient to force contracts.