‘The model is listening’: union’s win at Amazon hatched in a small apartment

The living room of the small two-bedroom apartment in Staten Island - sometimes called New York City's "forgotten borough" - is overflowing with office supplies, mail, red union stickers, and flyers with information about unions.

It seems almost unbelievable that amid this chaos, and armed with just $120,000 that they raised on GoFundMe, its occupants, Amazon workers Brett Daniels and Connor Spence, helped successfully unionize workers at the nearby gargantuan 855,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse - the first of the company's warehouses in the US to vote for a union.

"This is a monstrous win for the working class," said Daniels. "The Amazon Labor Union showed what seemed impossible is possible."

The apartment in a two-floor suburban house was the headquarters from which Amazon workers pulled off one of the biggest wins for US unions in decades. Beating Amazon's multimillion-dollar efforts to stop them organizing involved tireless organizing, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and a lot of free homemade food. But most of all, said 29-year-old Julian Mitchell-Israel, an Amazon worker and one of the original organizers with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), they listened.

"It's not that we've established a new model of organizing here," said Mitchell-Israel. "The model is listening and highlighting people's stories, and when we build a platform, using it to lift up their stories, because that's what's been compelling for the workers, that's what's gotten people to vote yes."

Amazon Labor Union defied the odds without any affiliation to national labor unions and precious little support from the political class which has seen other efforts to organize at Amazon rebuffed.

The surprise victory has been hailed as historic in the US media, and its organizers have been bombarded with interview requests from around the world. Elected officials and prominent figures have issued public declarations of support, including Joe Biden and several members of Congress, all attention that had been lacking leading up to the vote as most media outlets and elected officials, including ostensible supporters of labor unionizing efforts, ignored the ALU's efforts.