In late December, while Amazon workers were striking across the country, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE), a union of Amazon workers at the company’s RDU1 warehouse in Garner, North Carolina, filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). If the election is successful, they will be the second unionized Amazon warehouse in the country and the first in a right-to-work state.
“It’s a surreal moment,” says the Reverend Ryan Brown, president of CAUSE. “I knew that we would get to this stage, that’s why we poured our hearts and souls into organizing our coworkers for so long. At the same time, I’m always looking ahead and there’s still so much fight left.” In December, Brown was terminated from his position at RDU1 for allegedly making racist remarks, though Brown contends that he was fired in retaliation to union activity. Eileen Hards, a spokesperson for Amazon, writes in an email that Brown was terminated “for repeated misconduct that included making derogatory and racist comments to his co-workers.” In spite of his termination, Brown has continued organizing with CAUSE.
Much like the New York-based Amazon Labor Union, which, in 2022, became the first NLRB-recognized union at Amazon, CAUSE’s origins trace back to workers’ concerns about COVID-19 and feelings that the company was not prioritizing their health. After much reflection and prayer, Brown came to the conclusion that he needed to organize. He reached out to Mary “Ma Mary” Hill, a packer at Amazon since 2020, and began this monumental project. “We had a petition and we started asking our coworkers what things really, really got under their skin about working at Amazon,” says Hill. “And we found some common threads that, no matter what department you worked in, we all didn't like.”
CAUSE
CAUSE Leaders Reverend Ryan Brown and Mary "Ma Mary" Hill sign the first union cards at the dining room table in September 2024.
One of the top concerns for CAUSE organizers is Amazon’s disregard for worker health and safety at its warehouses, which U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Commission for Health, Safety, Labor, and Pensions, highlighted in a major report last month. Among the report’s findings was that “Amazon forces workers to move in unsafe ways and to repeat the same movements hundreds and thousands of times each shift, resulting in extremely high rates of musculoskeletal disorders.” RDU1 workers were among those included in Sanders’s report. “Nothing in [the report] is shocking to me,” says Brown. “I have scars. I know what goes on behind those walls.”
Sanders’s report also found that Amazon makes its “extremely difficult” for workers with disabilities to receive accommodations. RDU1 worker and CAUSE organizer Shancia Highsmith, who previously received accommodations for a health condition, says, “It’s just a waste of time to be on [accommodations] because they really don’t respect us when it comes to accommodations or anything like that. Some people [coworkers] say they’re trying to get accommodations. They got all the proof, but they still get denied.”
“Many people who need accommodations are almost begging and [Amazon] tries to evade giving accommodation in a thousand ways,” says Roberta, a worker at RDU1 who asked that her real name not be used because of concerns about retaliation.
A contributing factor to ongoing safety concerns is the fact that while many workers at RDU1 speak Spanish as their first language, Amazon does not provide safety training in any languages other than English, according to Roberta. “How are you going to absorb all of this information about what is flammable and what isn’t, the icons related to hazmat or dangerous substances, and other things that I don’t understand clearly because they gave the training [only] in English?” says Roberta.
In addition to the lack of Spanish language trainings, none of the safety officers who patrol the warehouse speak Spanish, making it difficult for Spanish-speaking workers to report injuries or safety concerns. According to Roberta, although managers will frequently talk about workplace safety, the standards are rarely put into practice. “When you start your shift,” Roberta says, “they [management] ask you questions, like a survey about safety, and the manager at the beginning always emphasizes the safety shoes, to put on your gloves, to avoid certain [dangerous] movements and stuff, but that’s a total facade. The people who are in charge of safety, who walk through the aisles putting on a show that they’re monitoring safety—they’re not. They don’t take it seriously.”
RDU1 workers are also concerned about the high productivity standards expected during peak season, which lasts from Amazon’s annual Prime Day in October through the December holidays. “You feel like you’re in a prison,” says Roberta. “Life becomes completely void. All you do is go to work before the sun even comes up, spend the whole day on your feet in there. When you leave, it’s dark already. You go home to rest, then it keeps repeating. [Overtime] should not be compulsory. It’s outrageous.”
CAUSE
A CAUSE canvaser approaches the RDU1 warehouse in Garner, North Carolina during the morning shift change.
Like the workers at New York City’s unionized JFK8 warehouse, CAUSE organizers report experiencing disrespectful treatment by Amazon and its managers. “We’re not treated fairly,” says Hill. “Half of the managers talk to you like you’re a piece of garbage on the floor. Like you’re not human. If [they] considered us as more than just robots, [they] would think about that and treat us accordingly.”
In response to their unionization efforts, CAUSE organizers say Amazon has been providing them with tokens of appreciation in order to quell enthusiasm for the union. “ Instead of giving us a raise or making our working conditions better, they constantly try to replace that with little treats,” says CAUSE organizer and Amazon worker Ava Evelyn. “They’re trying to coerce the employees into thinking, ‘Oh, Amazon is so good to us for giving you a biscuit.’ ” Examples of these “treats” include biscuits from Bojangles (a North Carolina fast food chain), tickets to the state fair, and DJ sets of music played during work. Amazon has also been accused by union organizers and the NLRB of engaging in union busting. Members of CAUSE expect to see more pushback from Amazon now that they have filed for a union election. “You’re about to see a side of Amazon now that you really never knew existed,” says Brown. In November of 2024, three CAUSE members were arrested at RDU1 while distributing food to workers who were struggling during the holiday season and collecting union cards. Brown only expects Amazon’s pushback to ramp up, but that hasn’t deterred him or other CAUSE leaders.
Amazon did not reply by publication time to a request for comment regarding the treatment described in this story by the workers at RDU1.
On January 7, CAUSE was informed that the card collection campaign had been successful, meaning CAUSE collected signed union election cards from at least 30 percent of eligible union members in their workplace. Workers will vote on whether to unionize in an election scheduled to take place February 10 to 15, 2025.
“We woke up,” says Hill. “Some of us have been asleep for a little while, but we’re wide awake now. We know what real power is. You might be in charge, but we have the power.”