Earlier this month, Staten Island Amazon workers voted 2,654 to 2,131 in favor of forming the first Amazon union in the United States. The location employs over 8,300 people. If certified by the National Labor Relations Board, the workers will join Amazon Labor Union. The New York Times called it “one of the biggest wins for organized labor in a generation.” Meanwhile, a second attempt to unionize in Alabama failed, and another Staten Island shipping center will hold a unionization vote later this month.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
