According to a tweet from Amazon Labor Union (ALU) president Christian Smalls, workers at JFK8, the largest of Amazon's four Staten Island stores, have agreed to vote next month on whether or not to unionize .
He added that the election will take place in person between March 25 and 30.
The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with protecting workers' rights, has not yet confirmed the date or method of the election. But NLRB spokesman Elliot Becker said in a statement to Fortune that "the parties to the union elections at the Amazon JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, have reached a tentative electoral agreement."
The preliminary announcement of the election is the culmination of months of union campaigning at JFK8. In October 2021, the ALU initially submitted an election motion to decide on the formation of a union with the NLRB, but had to withdraw due to a lack of signatures.
Smalls, who was fired in 2020 for violating workplace safety guidelines by leading a strike to protest unsafe working conditions, also tweeted a screenshot of a text message from Amazon to JFK8 workers on Wednesday announcing the dates became.
The memo reads, "We encourage all eligible JFK8 employees to participate in the election, make your voice heard, and vote NO."
In a statement to Fortune, Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel questioned whether the union really had enough support to warrant an election, but confirmed the company was planning one anyway.
"We remain skeptical that there are enough legitimate signatures to support this petition," spokeswoman Kelly Nantel wrote. "But since the NLRB has ruled that the election will go ahead, we want our staff's voices to be heard as soon as possible. Our employees have always had the choice of joining a union or not, and our focus remains on working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work.”
When the Staten Island election takes place in the last week of March, it will coincide with another union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, a repeat of a highly publicized 2021 election that the NLRB allegedly invalidated because of company practices has declared illegal anti-union campaign.
Ballots for this election are now available and the NLRB will begin counting on March 28th.