Chicago NLRB officials accuse Amazon of violating labor laws

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Local labor board officials filed a lawsuit against Amazon on Monday, alleging the company unlawfully discouraged organizing efforts at four suburban warehouses last year.

At the four facilities, located in Joliet, Monee, Channahon and Romeoville, employees organized themselves by collecting signatures for petitions for a raise last August and September, according to the complaint filed by Angie Cowan Hamada, regional director of National Labor Relations Boards in Chicago. . The company allegedly told workers they could not participate in protected activities outside the facilities in violation of the national labor relations law.

Amazon reportedly called police about workers collecting signatures in Joliet and Romeoville, and Joliet reportedly told police to remove the workers from the property.

The company is also accused of unlawfully monitoring workers in Joliet, Monee and Romeoville, as well as unlawfully interrogating workers in Romeoville.

A hearing in the case is scheduled for early October at regional labor board offices in Chicago.

These complaints are baseless, and we look forward to proving it through legal process, Amazon said in a statement Wednesday.

The complaint also alleges that Amazon violated the law by selectively and patchily applying certain company policies only against employees who engaged in union activity and/or other protected concerted activity.

Local labor board officials filed similar complaints against the company this week in Alabama, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin, according to the NLRB.

One of the policies in question is the company’s off-duty access policy, which, according to the complaint, prohibits workers from being in or in work areas outside of warehouses. Amazon when not in use.

The complaint asks Amazon to issue a three-year repeal of the policy at all facilities where it is in effect.

In the Chicago complaint, labor board officials also called for the repeal of the company’s solicitation policy, which prohibits the solicitation and distribution of workplace literature and which officials say was also enforced. selectively against workers who engaged in union or other protected activities.

Workers at the company’s Staten Island JFK8 warehouse are unionized with the Amazon Labor Union. Two other attempts to unionize in New York failed; a union election for workers in Bessemer, Alabama remains contested.

No Illinois warehouse workers have filed for union elections, although warehouse workers at some facilities have engaged in other forms of organizing in recent years.

In October, workers at the Joliet plant named in Monday’s labor board complaint demonstrated outside the plant on the first day of the company’s fall sale, demanding a base rate of pay of $25 per hour.

More than 40 workers at the same Joliet plant filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging a racist work environment; employees had previously alleged that racist death threats had been scrawled on a warehouse bathroom wall. Amazon said at the time that it works hard to protect our employees from any form of discrimination and to provide an environment where employees feel safe.

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