Amazon union push at Moreno Valley warehouse stalls
LA TimesAmazon employees Dyana Gallo, left, and Nannette Plascencia, center, of the Amazon fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, wait with community organizer Carolina Verduzco to file their petition for a union election this month at the National Labor Relations Board’s regional office in downtown Los Angeles. A group of Amazon workers at a fulfillment center in Moreno Valley seeking to join the independent Amazon Labor Union have withdrawn a petition to hold a union election, mere weeks after launching their campaign, the National Labor Relations Board confirmed. The move Friday to withdraw the petition came after Amazon raised doubts about whether organizers seeking to unionize the company’s ONT8 fulfillment center had gathered enough worker signatures to hold a union election. Chris Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, and Nannette Plascencia, a worker at ONT8 leading the union effort at the facility, said the group plans to resubmit its election petition in a few weeks. Filing an election petition on the early side “was a helpful move” to secure accurate data on ONT8’s workforce; he said the union now “can resubmit when we feel is best.” During its union drive at an Amazon facility in Staten Island called JFK8, the Amazon Labor Union similarly withdrew its initial election petition.