Workers Seeking to Unionize at Amazon Factory Allege Labor Rights Violations

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Amazon allegedly threatened and monitored workers seeking to unionize at a warehouse in Staten Island, NY, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleged in a January 27 complaint. Amazon denies the allegation. We have collected news articles from SHRM Online and other media.

Mandatory managerial training sought

The NLRB is seeking an order requiring mandatory training for Amazon managers and consultants, as well as requiring management to read a notice to employees about their rights in the presence of an NLRB official. The allegations against Amazon included accusations that it questioned employees about unionization.

“These claims are false, and we are eager to prove it,” an Amazon spokesperson said.

(Bloomberg)

Union election to be held

The NLRB confirmed Jan. 27 that the Amazon Labor Union had collected enough signatures to hold a vote on whether to unionize the Staten Island plant. The prospective union submitted more than 2,500 signatures in favor of holding a vote, erasing the NLRB’s threshold of 30% of workers the prospective union would cover. It’s 5,000 employees in this case.

“We doubt there are a sufficient number of legitimate signatures, and we are seeking to understand how these signatures were verified,” a company spokesperson said.

(AP)

Better chance of staging the Alabama facility this year?

Union organizers are more confident they will win employee approval for a union at an Amazon plant in Bessemer, Alabama, this year, despite losing an election for a union at the warehouse l ‘last year. Nearly half of the plant’s 6,143 workers are new since last April’s vote against a collective agreement. The NLRB ordered a re-vote, saying Amazon unlawfully interfered with the election process.

(New York Post)

Have the conditions for a fair election been undermined?

The NLRB’s regional director for the Atlanta area wrote on November 29, 2021 that in Alabama, Amazon “gave the strong impression that it controlled the [election] process” by arranging for a Postal Service collection box to be set up in the warehouse. The box was surrounded by a tent that appeared to be in view of Amazon’s surveillance cameras. Amazon said the box was intended to facilitate employee voting and that it did not have access to the ballot papers that workers deposited there.

(The New York Times) and (SHRM Online)

The union is definitively defeated in the first election in Alabama

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) lost Alabama’s first election by a margin of more than 2 to 1. “Our employees have always had a choice whether or not to join a union, and they have overwhelmingly chosen not to join the RWDSU earlier this year,” an Amazon spokeswoman said following the NLRB regional director’s decision. “It is disappointing that the NLRB has now decided that these votes will not shouldn’t count.”

(The Washington Post)

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