Editor’s note: The Chronicle is committed to maintaining journalistic standards and credibility in our coverage. The Chronicle has elected to grant anonymity to one of the facility’s employees — referred to in the article under the pseudonym “Maria Cano” — due to fear of retaliation. The Chronicle has confirmed the accuracy of the quotes published through our own recording of the interview.
For two years, Professor of Cultural Anthropology Orin Starn worked undercover as an Amazon warehouse worker — most recently at RDU1 in Garner, N.C. — conducting ethnographic research to “see what it was really like” to work at the company’s facilities.
Now, after two and a half years of organizing, workers and pro-union advocates at the warehouse have launched unionization efforts to secure better pay and improved working conditions. If successful, they would establish the first unionized Amazon facility in the South and the second in the country.
Workers in the 2.6 million-square-foot distribution facility have reported adverse working conditions — including demanding productivity quotas, long hours and intense manual labor — alongside constant surveillance and alleged workplace discrimination.
Unionization efforts started on Labor Day — Sept. 2 — when organizers from Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity & Empowerment (CAUSE) rallied workers to sign union authorization cards to initiate a union election.
To proceed with a union election, the National Labor Relations Board requires at least 30% of workers employed at the time of filing to sign union authorization cards. If the majority of workers vote in favor of unionization in a general election, the NLRB will certify the union.
CAUSE has called for a $30 minimum hourly wage, 180 hours a year in paid leave time, full hour paid break during shifts, more paid holiday time, accommodations for injured and disabled workers and equal treatment of all workers regardless of sex, race and nationality.
CAUSE organizers ramped up their efforts after Amazon rolled out a $1.50 raise for all hourly workers at RDU1 in early September. Many workers believed the increase was inadequate, fueling support for unionization.
The Chronicle spoke with former and current employees at RDU1 to hear about their working conditions at the facility and the unionization process.
Poor facility working conditions
“Instead of treating [employees well] so that they want to stay and take pride in their work, [the managers are] just assuming [that] a certain number of people are just always going to quit,” Starn said.
He said his average workday lasted more than 10 hours, with one paid 30-minute break and one unpaid 30-minute lunch break. Starn added that workers rarely took bathroom breaks during their shifts because “there’s absolutely no chairs anywhere.”
He shared that his work station was located roughly half a mile away from the bathroom. If workers are away from their station for more than five minutes, he said that a manager would track them down by locating their scanner.
“You always have a scanner … and the scanner gives managers your exact location in the building at every time,” he said.
He further emphasized the “super demanding” nature of working at the facility. Starn shared how he would walk “25 miles” each day to transport boxes to trucks on the shipping dock, and how workers were expected to pack boxes at the fulfillment center at a rate of 180 boxes per hour, or one box every 20 seconds.
“There are also cameras everywhere, so it's completely like you're being watched 24/7 — your location, what you're doing [and] how fast you're working — and if you don't meet those scan rates, you'll get some advice and some tips and stuff, but you'll get fired,” he said.
Maria Cano, who works in the decant station, is responsible for transferring merchandise from its original shipping boxes into other containers. She said she is expected to meet a minimum requirement of transferring 250 items per hour and that she is “subjected to artificial light all the time” and excessive heat and noise. Starn additionally noted that there are “no windows” in the facility.
Cano also alleged that many Hispanic workers face workplace discrimination. She detailed that despite the group being the second-largest ethnic population, there are no trainings offered in Spanish, nor a representative number of Hispanic managers or those in “good positions.”
Despite the long hours and difficult working conditions, workers said that their pay is insufficient to support their basic living needs. Starn reported earning $16.50 per hour — far below the minimum hourly living wage for an adult with a child in the Raleigh area, which the MIT living wage calculator estimates to be $41.54. According to the Amazon hiring website, the hourly pay rate is “up to $19” at the Garner location.
“The American Dream promises us that if we work hard — 40 hours a week — and do a good job, that we'll have enough to support ourselves and our family,” Starn said. “Amazon is so far from that that it’s really pretty scandalous.”
Amazon disputes the claims made by the RDU1 employees.
“Amazon already offers what many unions are requesting: competitive pay, health benefits on day one and opportunities for career growth,” wrote Amazon Public Relations Manager Eileen Hards in a Nov. 1 email to The Chronicle. “We look forward to working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work.”
Union drive at RDU1
The push for an union at RDU1 began in January 2022, when Ryan Brown — RDU1 employee and president of CAUSE — was asked to work in a part of the warehouse known among workers as a “COVID-19 hot spot.”
After calling out of work for the day, he posted a letter to the facility’s general manager on the Voices of Associates board — a forum where workers can provide feedback to Amazon — to express his “discomfort” with the request. When he returned to work the next day, Brown was told to go to the general manager’s office, where he said he was given “the same corporate talking points.” Feeling unsettled about the situation, he approached fellow employee Mary Hill, and CAUSE was born.
Starn, who has since been fired from his job at RDU1 but who remains a member of CAUSE, described the worker-led campaign as a “mom and pop union” that raises its funds through GoFundMe.
However, Starn pointed out that RDU1’s union drive may be more difficult to achieve than the successful unionization effort at JFK8 in Staten Island, N.Y., which he attributed to the stronger presence of unions in the northeast.
“We have some people here, workers who didn't really know what a union was until they started learning about CAUSE,” Starn said.
According to Oxfam’s 2024 list of Best and Worst States to Work in America, North Carolina is ranked the worst in the nation in wage compensation, worker protection rights and rights to organize. In 2023, North Carolina had the second-lowest union membership rate in the nation, at just 2.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Every state in the South has a “right-to-work” law, meaning that newly hired employees are not required to join any labor unions. This law makes it harder for workers to collectively bargain for higher wages and improved working conditions.
On top of these legal barriers, Starn also pointed to Amazon “mount[ing] a massive union-busting campaign in the facility.” According to a recording obtained by The Chronicle, employee relations specialists have cautioned warehouse employees about the costs of dues upon joining a union.
“If you vote yes for a union, you are subject to [union] dues, and they are often several hundred dollars per year and can be deducted directly from your paycheck after taxes,” said an employee relations specialist during a meeting with facility floor workers. “So this is one of those questions that I would ask — what will it cost me to be represented by a union?”
They have also communicated to workers the risk of providing private information to the union, with the employee relations specialist in the recording noting that union representatives could “give you a call while you're at home or you're off of work” and share that information with “outside groups.”
According to the email from Hards, Amazon employees “have [always had] the choice of whether or not to join a union.”
Starn defended CAUSE as “a local group, a worker-run organization” which workers have the freedom to join or not join due to right-to-work laws.
“If a worker doesn't want to join the union and doesn't want to pay dues, they won't. So to say, ‘if the union wins, you'll have to pay dues,’ is just another flat-out lie,” he said.
Although 30% of workers need to sign union cards to hold an election, Amazon is not required to disclose the actual number of workers in the facility to CAUSE. Current estimates range from anywhere between 3,000 and 6,000 workers.
Starn characterized this lack of transparency as an “unfairness of the process.”
According to Starn, the uncertainty over how many employees constitute 30%, combined with a high turnover rate at the facility, has made it difficult for CAUSE to collect signatures. If an employee who has signed a union authorization card leaves the company, their signature will be discarded by the NLRB.
Workers are also less willing to express support for the union due to fear of retaliation, according to Cano, who noted that people are “afraid of being fired [and] losing the benefits” Amazon already provides.
Starn stood by the importance of the union’s success, explaining that unionization will improve workers’ job security and reduce the turnover rate. He also believes that Amazon raising its salaries could create a “positive ripple effect” across other companies’ pay practices.
Starn ultimately hopes that by “winning the union fight” in North Carolina, CAUSE can inspire workers at other Amazon facilities and peer corporations to unionize and contest unfair working conditions.
Amazon is the second-largest private-sector employer and the largest warehouse employer in the nation, with over 1 million employees in 45 states.
The hope for unionization has also spread to the Duke community. Students in Starn’s Cultural Anthropology 204: Union Activism class have volunteered to distribute fliers and help with phone banking. Players on Duke’s football team made a video on Instagram in support of CAUSE, and the recently formed Duke Graduate Students Union has publicly backed the worker’s efforts in their recent rallies.
Starn expressed confidence that the campaign would “make history” by reaching the 30% threshold and winning the election.
“But the reality is — [which] I think [Amazon] is going to learn — is that people are discontented, and … [that] Amazon workers are not stupid,” he said. “[Workers] can see that they're working hard, getting paid badly and not [being] treated like human beings.”
Editor's note: This article was updated Thursday morning to reflect that Starn has since been fired from his job at the Garner, N.C., facility and to clarify that Starn worked six months at the Garner, N.C., location and two years overall at the company's facilities.
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Vikram Sambasivan is a Trinity first-year and a staff reporter for the news department.
Lucas Lin is a Trinity sophomore and a university news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.