Amazon warehouse workers in the Staten Island borough of New York City voted to unionize on Friday, marking the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the online retail giant's history and handing an unexpected win to a nascent group that fueled the union drive. (CBC News)
Barry Eidlin, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Amazon.com Inc. could be facing its first unionization battle in Canada after a Teamsters local filed for a union vote for workers at the e-commerce giant’s fulfilment centre near Edmonton. If the Alberta Labour Relations Board verifies application, all workers at the YEG 1 fulfilment centre in Nisku, Alberta, who were employed as of September 13 will be able to vote on joining the union. In order to have a union vote filing approved in Alberta, the union must demonstrate 40 per cent of workers at a given job site have signed a petition for union representation.
The end of September saw the formation of a new team of rivals: the Partnership on AI, whose motto is "to benefit people and society". The partnership includes tech giants Amazon, Google and its subsidiary Deepmind, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft.
