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Amazon employees have picketed their workplace in support of a union.

Amazon workers in Schodack are trying to organize a union.

SCHODACK - This is not your father’s union battle. This month, union disputes have taken center stage in the Capital Region as efforts to organize both multinational corporations and tiny nonprofit organizations have grabbed local headlines.

And while different, the conflicts between Amazon and the Capitol Roots non-profit and their respective union groups represent two sides of what’s happening in a growing but changing labor movement in the U.S.

In one instance hundreds of warehouse workers are taking on Amazon, one of the world’s richest corporations.

In the other, about 20 idealistic people who work for Capital Roots, a charity devoted to food equity, are suddenly battling their bosses.

While different, these two fights may portend what could be more labor unrest going forward, as Amazon employees nationwide are inquiring about unionizing, and as more and more human service non-profits like Capital Roots, which are often thinly funded, face union drives of their own.

At Amazon’s fulfillment center here in Schodack, union activists have started a GoFundMe page for workers they say were fired for supporting the ongoing organizing effort. That comes as organizers say people are being harassed and fired for signing union cards, a contention that Amazon denies.

Eighteen miles to the north, a battle with far fewer people but with a broad footprint is being played out as Capital Roots, a venerable Troy non-profit, is locked in conflict with SEIU 200, the union that Capital Roots earlier this summer voluntarily recognized.

Amid increasingly hostile relations, Capital Roots Executive Director Amy Klein last week said they were canceling their longstanding fundraising gala, Autumn Evening, due to harassment from their new union.

While Capital Roots employs only about 20 people, the cancellation will likely redound through the Capital Region’s donor class of professionals and business people who typically patronize such fundraisers.

Both are examples of how union organizing has gone far beyond the traditional picketing events that have marked such conflicts in the past.

Picket lines are still used by unions, but these new organizing units are broadening their tactics.

There are reasons for this. For one thing, the people organizing at Amazon, as well as those working to organize more than two dozen Starbucks coffee shops in New York, are operating largely on their own, rather than being directed from large national unions.

They also are using all the social media tools at their disposal – which explains the use of a GoFundMe page.

“As we are seeing an upsurge in union organizing right now, including in sectors that have not traditionally had unions, cyberspace is increasingly becoming a space for contention between organizing workers and their employers,” said Todd Vachon, an assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations at Rutgers University.

To be sure, picket lines are still a tool.

The SEIU 200 union picketed Capitol Roots earlier this month, saying they might picket the September gala.

But this wasn’t an ongoing picket line, such as the one that workers in, say, Waterford’s Momentive Performance Materials chemical plant maintained during a strike in 2016 and 2017.

That picket line ran for weeks on end.

And the Momentive strike was largely about pay and benefit cuts imposed by the Blackstone and Apollo investment groups that purchased Momentive from General Electric several years prior.

At Capitol Roots, workers said they want to make more than the $15-an-hour-or-less that many earn. But they also said they want more say in how things are run, including their workloads.

And rather than skilled blue collar workers at Momentive, Capitol Roots is largely staffed by idealistic individuals who believe in the organization’s mission of improving nutrition for underprivileged people.

Both sides this week were trading blame for the demise of the Autumn Evening fundraiser.

“We urged those supporters to make their own decisions about their participation and attendance,” SEIU organizer Sean Collins said. “That many of those supporters, volunteers, vendors, and donors decided to pull out of the fundraiser is the result of Amy’s actions, not ours,” he added, referring to Amy Klein.

While Capital Roots said some chefs had been discouraged from participating in the event, six of the 13 featured event chefs reached by the Times Union said they hadn’t been contacted by anyone.

On the other hand, one unnamed volunteer cited a letter the person received urging a boycott of Autumn Evening.

The Aug. 5 letter, in which business names were redacted, read “Congratulations on being a featured business at the Autumn Evening event at the Hilton Garden Inn on September 15th, 2022!.”

 It went on, though to criticize what the writer said was Klein’s treatment of employees since they had unionized and read  “I ask that you withdraw your support of their organization and of this event to demonstrate your support of workers in every industry from farm to table and throughout our community.”

At Amazon, the fight may be less  personal but it’s just as intense.

 Workers there also want better pay that starts at about $15.70 per hour. But a major complaint also centers on what workers contend is the rapid pace of work they say is leading to injuries.

The Amazon push is part of a trend in which workers at their facilities nationwide have intermittently sought to organize.

Employees at more than 100 Amazon facilities have at least reached out to the nascent Amazon Labor Union, according to several news accounts.

So far, though, just one, on Staten Island, has voted to unionize. Amazon is contesting that vote.

More than 8,000 workers are employed at the Staten Island facility while the Schodack center has about 900.

Heather Goodall, who is  organizing the effort at Schodack, contends that workers in recent months have been fired for signing union cards which could ultimately lead to a vote on whether the facility should be unionized.

Since June, union organizers have filed a half dozen complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the company has retaliated against employees who support the union. Those complaints are currently under review.

“Our employees are being fired left and right,” said Goodall.

She said the company has let 10 employees go in the last two weeks alone.

With that in mind, the Alb1 Schodack Union Employee Retaliation Fund on GoFundMe was created to assist those who the union says have been unfairly let go for their unionizing activities. Alb 1 is the name of the Schodack facility. Since it was created last week, the fund has raised $2,470 as of Thursday with a goal of $10,000.

Amazon officials refute Goodall’s charges about the firings.

“We do not retaliate against employees for exercising their federally protected rights. We work hard to accommodate our team’s needs, but like any employer, we ask our employees to meet certain minimum expectations and take appropriate and consistent action when they’re unable to do that,” Amazon spokesman Paul Flaningan said in an email.

“They accused me of stealing from the kiosk,” said Orlando Santiago, who was recently let go from the Schodack center after he signed a card supporting a union vote.

His supervisors said he had taken small bags of chips and other food items from a snack kiosk for employees without paying for them, a charge he denies. “I asked them for proof,” he said.

Santiago said he earned $15.95-an-hour as a “picker” or worker who moves  items from the series of 30-foot-high shelves to spots where they are packaged, addressed and sent out to loading docks for shipping. Best described as a large warehouse, Alb 1 is a “fulfillment center” where relative bulky items like flat screen TVs, air fryers or vacuums are sorted and packaged for shipping.

Santiago said he’d like his job back but also was looking at working for the ShopRite supermarket chain.

Goodall said Amazon supervisors have used a number of pretexts to fire union activists, including charges that they have used up their allotments of time off when they were actually taking sick days or medical leave.

Some have been rehired, she said. (We were unable to confirm with Amazon how many had been brought back.)

Worker complaints, she added, centered around what she said was the lack of proper equipment such as scanning devices or ill-fitting safety harnesses that workers wear when ascending the shelf areas on the special forklifts which the driver controls to reach items for pickup.

Others, she said, have been let go for failing to meet Amazon’s “fast start” policy of quickly getting to work at the beginning of a shift. But she that’s because the forklift devices often need to be fueled up, which takes time at the start of the day.

Flaningan also disputed that, saying workers are provided with all the equipment they need.

“We have enough equipment, and in the uncommon case there ever is an issue it’s addressed immediately and in the moment,” he said. “The health and safety of our employees is always our top priority, and overall, we have robust safety protocols and more than 8,000 safety professionals across our operations who work every day to support our teams.”

Like other disputes, the Capital Region’s labor fights are also veering into the region’s political structure.

SEIU employees have reached out to local city and legislative officials with their complaints about Capital Roots.

That puts lawmakers, largely Democrats, in the position of having to finesse or perhaps mediate between a politically powerful union and well-known nonprofit that has longstanding progressive bona fides.

Ultimately, once a union is recognized such as SEIU, the two sides will have to sit down, noted Rebecca Kolins Givan, who also is an associate professor management and labor relations at Rutgers University.

“It’s hard to reach a contract,” she said. “But if there is sufficient commitment, it can be done.”

Rick Karlin covers the environment and energy development for the Times Union. Has previously covered education and state government and wrote about natural resources and state government in Colorado and Maine. You can reach him at  rkarlin@timesunion.com or  518-454-5758.