Voting began today in a union election at Amazon’s RDU1 warehouse in Garner that could make the sprawling facility the second unionized Amazon workplace in the United States.
Workers will vote through Saturday on whether to unionize under Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or C.A.U.S.E., which needs support from more than half of those who cast ballots to win (4,300 workers at the warehouse will be eligible to vote). If successful, the union would push for $30 hourly wages, hour-long paid lunch breaks, increased paid time off, consistent scheduling, and faster accommodations for injured workers.
The vote comes amid escalating tensions and allegations that Amazon has intensified its anti-union tactics in recent weeks. As Amazon has ramped up its anti-union campaign, organizers have fought back, setting up a camp outside the warehouse and rallying support from labor leaders nationwide—including veterans of the successful Staten Island union drive, whose visit ended in arrest on the eve of the election.
Speaking to students in a Duke University “Union Activism” class last Thursday, C.A.U.S.E. organizer Italo Medelius said Amazon has been exploiting cultural divisions within the warehouse’s workforce.
“Amazon knows this election is hinging on Hispanic votes,” said Medelius.
Medelius, who is Peruvian and has worked at RDU1 since 2022, alleged that Amazon targets different nationalities with distinct messaging as part of its union-busting tactics.
“We’ve seen the union busters in the Spanish language information meetings hit on the usual tropes ‘the union is for lazy people’ ‘you all are the hard workers’ ‘the union is not for Hispanics’ which is easily taken as a race trope,” Medlius wrote in a text message to the INDY.
Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards wrote in an email to the INDY that Medelius’s allegations are false.
Medelius also described a visible escalation in anti-union messaging throughout the warehouse in recent weeks. There are TV screens throughout RDU1 playing anti-union videos on a loop, he said, and managers have been holding daily town halls that Medelius characterizes as “vote no rallies” on a stage next to the ship dock—the same location where the union election is being held this week. When asked about these town halls, Hards said they are “held by many companies and have been legal for over 70 years.”
To combat Amazon’s messaging and spread their own information, C.A.U.S.E organizers have set up a “camp” on the sidewalk outside the warehouse, with tents and tables where they barbecue hot dogs and hamburgers and distribute union materials to workers during shift changes.
Leading up to the vote, more than 120 people gathered Saturday across the street from RDU1 for a rally that became a thunderous display of labor solidarity. Representatives from more than a dozen unions—the Union of Southern Service Workers, Duke Graduate Student Union, Durham Association of Educators, UE150, local branches of United Auto Workers and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, among others—delivered speeches, translated into Spanish by two interpreters. They were joined by leaders from the Teamsters and a delegation from Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island.
The rally’s energy built throughout the afternoon. The Durham Labor Choir performed three songs, including a union-themed rendition of Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go” (“G-O-T-T-O-G-O, billionaires have got to go, workers’ rights are on a roll”). Prime delivery trucks honked in support as they left the warehouse, drawing cheers from ralliers. Adding to the spectacle was Orin Starn—a Duke professor who was fired from RDU1 earlier this year after working six months at the warehouse while researching a book about Amazon. Starn appeared in costume as Jeff Bezos, complete with a bald cap, Blue Origin-style jumpsuit, and a toy spaceship tucked in his belt, marching around and declaring, “I do not believe in equality, I believe in hierarchy and injustice.”
Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls, who, like C.A.U.S.E. president Ryan Brown, was fired by Amazon in 2020 amid organizing efforts at their respective warehouses, headlined the event. Smalls led Staten Island’s JFK8 warehouse to the first and only successful Amazon union victory in 2021.
“This is a lifetime fight that you signed up for,” Smalls told the crowd. “You cannot have one foot in and one foot out. You gotta have both feet in this fight.”
While JFK8’s victory marked a watershed moment for Amazon organizing, the ALU has faced significant challenges since then. Internal leadership disputes emerged amid allegations of financial mismanagement and a lack of transparency, and the union has still yet to negotiate a first contract with Amazon, which has maintained that the election was invalid. The union recently sought broader support by affiliating with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 2024. If successful at RDU1, C.A.U.S.E. plans to operate independently.
On Sunday night, the eve of the election, Garner police arrested a JFK8 worker who was stationed at the C.A.U.S.E. camp outside RDU1. Organizers said the arrest occurred around 9 p.m. as the ALU contingent was preparing to return to New York, and that the worker, who serves as ALU’s recording secretary, was released several hours later. Sultana Hossain had been formally trespassed from the property earlier that day at Amazon’s request, according to Garner Police Captain Michael Medlin, who said police first responded to a call from Amazon Loss Prevention about Hossain at 10:49 a.m. When Hossain returned to the property that evening, she was arrested for second-degree trespassing. The incident comes two months after Garner police arrested three C.A.U.S.E. supporters who were distributing food and union information outside the warehouse.
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