Amazon has been ordered by the Trump administration’s labor board to recognize and bargain with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at a warehouse in Staten Island, following a multiyear standoff that halted the workplace’s union bid.
Workers at the giant Amazon facility voted to unionize in April 2022, in the first union victory at the country’s second-largest private employer and a milestone for U.S. labor. But the tech giant has vehemently refused to recognize the union, leading to a contracted legal battle at the National Labor Relations Board.
The union has been seeking to get Amazon to the bargaining table to negotiate over pay, benefits and workplace safety. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
“Four years ago, Amazon workers at JFK8 won an NLRB election. Now, on this monumental anniversary, they have become the first group ever to force the company to recognize their union,” said Teamsters President Sean O’Brien in a written statement.
Eileen Hards, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement that “the NLRB’s certification of the March 2022 election is wrong on the facts and the law, and the truth is that both the [Amazon Labor Union] and representatives of the NLRB improperly influenced this election.”
“We’re confident an unbiased court will overturn the original certification,” Hards said.
The labor board’s decision in favor of the Teamsters reawakens a long-running dispute between organized labor and the e-commerce giant at the warehouse, although it does not mark the end of the legal battle.
In late March, President Donald Trump designated a new chair of the National Labor Relations Board, following an extended period of inactivity that dominated much of Trump’s first year back in office. For months, the board had lacked a quorum needed to issue rulings and decisions. Notably, the new Republican-majority board sided against Amazon in the case.
Amazon is expected to appeal the decision in court.
The Trump administration has made some unusual inroads with parts of organized labor — including the Teamsters — in an effort to curry favor with working-class voters. During the 2024 election, O’Brien was invited to give the prime-time address at the Republican National Convention and later withheld the union’s presidential endorsement for the first time in decades, after meeting with Trump. Later, the Trump administration selected Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican with union bona fides, for labor secretary, the Teamsters-favored pick.
The Amazon warehouse workers in Staten Island originally voted to join the Amazon Labor Union, an independent union, in a campaign that broke many traditional organizing rules. But facing financial hardship, the union affiliated with the Teamsters in 2024, an alliance that appeared to increase the upstart union’s leverage in getting Amazon to the bargaining table.
Since the union’s victory in 2022, the labor board has repeatedly found that Amazon violated its workers’ union rights at the Staten Island warehouse.
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