A dissident group has won control of the Amazon Labor Union, the only union in the country that formally represents Amazon warehouse workers, election results on Tuesday showed.
The union won a representation vote at a Staten Island warehouse in 2022 but has yet to negotiate a contract as Amazon contests the outcome. The group has been divided over governance and strategy, as well as personality conflicts, after falling short in efforts to organize other Amazon facilities.
A leader of the dissident group, Connor Spence, will take over, succeeding the founding president, Christian Smalls, who chose not to run for re-election. Mr. Spence defeated the union’s current recording secretary in an election that attracted roughly 250 votes, out of thousands of workers at the warehouse.
The result was announced by Mr. Spence’s group and confirmed by Mr. Smalls.
Mr. Spence’s group brought a lawsuit last year to force leadership elections within the union. The two sides announced a settlement in January that set the stage for this month’s election, which was overseen by a court-approved monitor.
The dissident group, the A.L.U. Democratic Reform Caucus, argued that Mr. Smalls and other union leaders had too much power and were unaccountable to rank-and-file members, a charge that Mr. Smalls rejected.
The caucus also claimed victory for the union’s three other officer positions. It said in a statement that after a long fight to reform the union, “we are relieved to finally be able to turn our full attention toward bringing Amazon to the table.”
Mr. Smalls said in a direct message that “workers aren’t interested in who’s running the union,” but “want a contract to improve their quality of living.”
Mr. Spence’s group says it would survey workers at the Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, before setting priorities. But it has declared short-term goals like making it easier for workers to use cellphones on the job and winning better accommodations for pregnant workers, as well as longer-term goals like higher wages and more paid time off.
Amazon declined to comment on the election results but has said that its accommodations for pregnant workers meet or exceed state and federal laws and that it has invested billions in recent years to improve pay, benefits, training and safety.
The union’s new leaders have said that getting Amazon to bargain will also require “a robust national campaign which brings other Amazon warehouses like JFK8 into our network.”
The union will have a new ally in that fight: the 1.3-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with which the Amazon union formally affiliated in June. Under the agreement, the Teamsters will provide the union with money and personnel to help with organizing, research, communications and legal matters.
Mr. Spence, a co-founder of the Amazon union, was fired last fall over what Amazon said were violations of its policy on off-duty access to the warehouse. He is challenging the firing before the National Labor Relations Board and is eligible to serve as union president during the challenge.
Members of the union say Amazon has been more aggressive in recent months enforcing rules that limit their ability to organize. The company called the police in June after Amazon Labor Union members and Teamsters gathered in front of the warehouse seeking to persuade workers to back the unions’ affiliation agreement. After Mr. Spence and another Amazon union leader who had been fired refused to leave, officers handcuffed the two, took them to a police station and issued tickets requiring court appearances.
The company also brought in police during a mid-July protest on its Staten Island grounds. Mr. Spence was handcuffed and taken to the police station again, along with about half a dozen other protesters.
Amazon has said that employees are free to distribute material outside warehouses, and that it has called police when nonemployees create a disturbance and refuse to leave.