As was the case with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) in Staten Island, Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE), the nascent union of Amazon workers at RDU1, a fulfillment center in Garner, North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh, started because of COVID.

In January of 2022, Reverend Ryan Brown, CAUSE’s president, was asked to work in a part of the warehouse that he knew to be a COVID hot spot — not, he will tell you, because Amazon informed employees about outbreaks, but because workers contacted one another to communicate about COVID cases. Brown, a former pastor at a black Baptist church in western North Carolina who has worked at Amazon for nearly three years, didn’t feel comfortable with the assignment. So, he used some of his time off to go home instead.

“En route to my residence, my soul was just so troubled,” says Brown. “I thought, ‘You’re trying to make me go somewhere that I don’t feel comfortable and I don’t feel safe and you’re telling me I don’t have any other choice?’”