First Segment: On April 1 of this year, the Amazon Labor Union pulled off what many said was impossible — they won a union election at JFK8, an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island. The election results were objected to by Amazon and after months of hearings and deliberation, the National Labor Relations Board announced on Thursday that the company’s objections had no merit. The worker-led Amazon Labor Union is demanding the company come to the bargaining table and negotiate a first contract.
Since the ALU win at the Staten Island warehouse, workers at three other U.S. warehouses have launched union campaigns. Workers have been organizing in Albany since this spring at the ALB1 warehouse, where a union election will be held October 13-15.
For the latest developments with the Amazon Labor Union., we were joined by Seth Goldstein, pro-bono lawyer for the ALU, and Michael Verrastro, a former Amazon employee in Albany who joined the union effort after being abruptly fired.
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Second segment: Our special guest was Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a public school parent leader and a member of New York City’s school board. A new school years begins on Thursday for New York City’s 1 million public school students. Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez has been a leading critic of the decision by Eric Adams and the City Council to defund the schools this year by $469 million. She talks about the impact that decision is having on the city’s children and their support systems and what public education activists are doing to claw that money back.
