Notes on the Amazon Labor Union’s Birth
A week after workers at its giant Staten Island warehouse voted to unionize, I went for a closer look.
Late Friday afternoon, I got in my car and drove from my home in lower Westchester County to Staten Island, to attend a press conference by the Amazon Labor Union outside the JFK8 warehouse where they got their start. It took 90 minutes to make it down the West Side Highway to the George Washington Bridge and through the never-ending traffic of the New Jersey Turnpike until I reached the exit for the Goethals Bridge to Staten Island. I fretted about getting lost and missing the event, but as my car reached the top of the bridge, which rises several hundred feet over the pipelines, container terminals and wetlands that riddle the border between Elizabeth, New Jersey and the northwest corner of Staten Island, I saw down below four massive structures, each the length of a dozen football fields, dominating the otherwise green landscape. There was no missing the JFK8 Amazon warehouse, or its sister monoliths the LDJ5 Amazon sort center, the DYY6 Amazon delivery station or the vast parking garage serving their thousands of workers. Behemoth was the only word that came to mind. The one road from the exit turnoff led straight there.
