Amazon workers reject union in vote at North Carolina warehouse
File: The Amazon distribution center in Garner, N.C. opened in August 2020. Across four floors, the warehouse covers 2 million square feet.
Scott Sharpe | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
Amazon workers at a facility near Raleigh, North Carolina, overwhelmingly voted against unionizing on Saturday.
Of the 3,276 ballots cast, there were 2,447 votes opposing the union and 829 in favor, according to the National Labor Relations Board. There were 77 challenged ballots, a gap that’s too narrow to change the outcome of the election. The results still need to be certified by the NLRB.
The election at the facility, named RDU1 and located in the suburb of Garner, came after organizers with the upstart Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE) campaigned at the warehouse for the past three years. The facility employs roughly 4,700 workers.
CAUSE said in a statement that the election results were a “result of Amazon’s willingness to break the law.”
“Amazon’s relentless and illegal efforts to intimidate us prove that this company is afraid of workers coming together to claim our power,” the group said. “Amazon may think it is above the law, but we will not accept a system that allows billionaires and corporations to play by a different set of rules.”
Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards denied that the company broke the law or interfered with the election.
“We’re glad that our team in Garner was able to have their voices heard, and that they chose to keep a direct relationship with Amazon,” Hards said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to make this a great place to work together, and to supporting our teammates as they build their futures with us.”
Amazon, the nation’s second-largest private employer, has long sought to keep unions out of its ranks. The strategy succeeded in the U.S. until 2022, when workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted to join the Amazon Labor Union. Last month, workers at a Whole Foods store in Philadelphia voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
Amazon responded to the Garner union drive with a barrage of anti-union messages in the warehouse, on a website, and sent through its AtoZ app to employees. A leader of the warehouse urged employees to “vote no,” saying a union “can get in the way of how we work together.” The company described CAUSE as an “outside party” that’s “claiming to be a union.”
Amazon has previously said its employees can choose whether or not to join a union, and that it speaks “openly, candidly and respectfully about these topics” so that they can “make an informed decision.”
CAUSE was founded in 2022 by RDU1 employees Mary Hill and Rev. Ryan Brown to voice concerns about the company’s response to the Covid pandemic, which they viewed as inadequate. The group sought to organize RDU1 to boost wages and secure longer breaks.
Starting pay at RDU1 is $18.50 an hour. CAUSE has pushed to negotiate for wages of $30 an hour.
In its statement on Saturday, CAUSE said it intended to continue organizing at RDU1 “because over half of Amazon employees are still struggling with food and housing insecurity.”
Labor groups have looked beyond NLRB elections in an attempt to gain a union foothold at Amazon. They’ve assisted employees with filing unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB against Amazon, accusing the company of violating labor laws.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters helped coordinate a picket effort at nine Amazon facilities in December. Amazon said the walkout had no impact on its operations.
The Teamsters union has said it represents 9,000 Amazon workers around the country, although the company has refused to recognize the union and bargain with leadership.
Unions have enjoyed increasing support across the country, with 67% of Americans saying they approve of labor unions, according to Gallup. But that hasn’t translated into higher membership rates. Union membership in the private sector declined slightly to 5.9% in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
North Carolina had the lowest union membership rate in the country last year, with only 2.4% of workers in the state represented, according to the BLS.
WATCH: Amazon’s first U.S. union faces an uphill battle after historic win
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is initiating a secondary share sale that would give the company a valuation of up to $800 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
SpaceX is also telling some investors it will consider going public possibly around the end of next year, the report said.
At the elevated price, Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor would be valued above ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which wrapped up a share sale at a $500 billion valuation in October.
SpaceX has been investing heavily in reusable rockets, launch facilities and satellites, while competing for government contracts with newer space players, including Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin. SpaceX is far ahead, and operates the world’s largest network of satellites in low earth orbit through Starlink, which powers satellite internet services under the same brand name.
A SpaceX IPO would include its Starlink business, which the company previously considered spinning out.
Musk recently discussed whether SpaceX would go public during Tesla‘s annual shareholders meeting last month. Musk, who is the CEO of both companies, said he doesn’t love running publicly traded businesses, in part because they draw “spurious lawsuits,” and can “make it very difficult to operate effectively.”
However, Musk said during the meeting that he wanted to “try to figure out some way for Tesla shareholders to participate in SpaceX,” adding, “maybe at some point, SpaceX should become a public company despite all the downsides.”
WATCH: What retail investors should know about OpenAI and SpaceX
The logo for Google LLC is seen at the Google Store Chelsea in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., November 17, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
A U.S. judge on Friday finalized his decision for the consequences Google will face for its search monopoly ruling, adding new details to the decided remedies.
Last year, Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search, and in September, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the most severe consequences that were proposed by the Department of Justice.
That included the proposal of a forced sale of Google’s Chrome browser, which provides data that helps the company’s advertising business deliver targeted ads. Alphabet shares popped 8% in extended trading as investors celebrated what they viewed as minimal consequences from a historic defeat last year in the landmark antitrust case.
Investors largely shrugged off the ruling as non-impactful to Google. However some told CNBC it’s still a bite that could “sting.”
Mehta on Friday issued additional details for his ruling in new filings.
“The age-old saying ‘the devil is in the details’ may not have been devised with the drafting of an antitrust remedies judgment in mind, but it sure does fit,” Mehta wrote in one of the Friday filings.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously said it will appeal the remedies.
In August 2024, Mehta ruled that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act and held a monopoly in search and related advertising. The antitrust trial started in September 2023.
In his September decision, Mehta said the company would be able to make payments to preload products, but it could not have exclusive contracts that condition payments or licensing. Google was also ordered to loosen its hold on search data. Mehta in September also ruled that Google would have to make available certain search index data and user interaction data, though “not ads data.”
The DOJ had asked Google to stop the practice of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.
The judge’s September ruling didn’t end the practice entirely — Mehta ruled out that Google couldn’t enter into exclusive deals, which was a win for the company. Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on iPhones. It’s lucrative for Apple and a valuable way for Google to get more search volume and users.
Mehta’s new details
In the Friday filings, Mehta wrote that Google cannot enter into any deal like the one it’s had with Apple “unless the agreement terminates no more than one year after the date it is entered.”
This includes deals involving generative artificial intelligence products, including any “application, software, service, feature, tool, functionality, or product” that involve or use genAI or large-language models, Mehta wrote.
GenAI “plays a significant role in these remedies,” Mehta wrote.
The judge also reiterated the web index data it will require Google to share with certain competitors.
Google has to share some of the raw search interaction data it uses to train its ranking and AI systems, but it does not have to share the actual algorithms — just the data that feeds them.” In September, Mehta said those data sets represent a “small fraction” of Google’s overall traffic, but argued the company’s models are trained on data that contributed to Google’s edge over competitors.
The company must make this data available to qualified competitors at least twice, one of the Friday filing states. Google must share that data in a “syndication license” model whose term will be five years from the date the license is signed, the filing states.
Mehta on Friday also included requirements on the makeup of a technical committee that will determine the firms Google must share its data with.
Committee “members shall be experts in some combination of software engineering, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, economics, behavioral science, and data privacy and data security,” the filing states.
The judge went on to say that no committee member can have a conflict of interest, such as having worked for Google or any of its competitors in the six months prior to or one year after serving in the role.
Google is also required to appoint an internal compliance officer that will be responsible “for administering Google’s antitrust compliance program and helping to ensure compliance with this Final Judgment,” per one of the filings. The company must also appoint a senior business executive “whom Google shall make available to update the Court on Google’s compliance at regular status conferences or as otherwise ordered.”
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
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