Amazon Violated Rights of Workers Trying to Unionize, Labor Regulators Find

"Workers at an Amazon air hub in Kentucky celebrated a victory Thursday," reports the Washington Post, "after federal labor regulators found that Amazon violated labor law by trying to prevent workers there from unionizing." The employees have been demanding higher pay, more flexible schedules and safer working conditions since 2022. After a months-long investigation, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against Amazon last week, alleging the e-commerce behemoth illegally attempted to curtail those efforts by interrogating workers, threatening to call the police on them and demoting workers involved in union organizing.

The complaint is a victory for union organizers at a crucial air cargo hub in Kentucky who have been alleging that Amazon has been unfairly interfering with their unionization efforts there for months.... Amazon workers at various sites around the country have been trying to unionize for years, with little to show for it. Many have accused Amazon of using illegal tactics to discourage workers from supporting unions — more than 240 such charges have been filed with the labor board, workers said... Amazon employee Marcio Rodriguez said he was threatened with termination for his union-organizing activity along with 10 co-workers. For two weeks, Rodriguez said, Amazon management would "show up to where I was working out on the ramp in front of my co-workers in a truck and take me to the HR office," where they would interrogate him...

Amazon workers in Kentucky are seeking to form Amazon Labor Union, an independent but associated branch of the group that won a historic victory at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island in 2021. Lawyers for the union there are still battling Amazon, which has yet to come to the bargaining table and continues to argue that the NLRB unfairly sided with workers during that election. More recently, the company has argued in another New York case that the National Labor Relations Board itself is structured unconstitutionally, following legal arguments set forth by lawyers for SpaceX and Trader Joe's...

Amazon is scheduled to appear at a hearing before labor regulators regarding its alleged anti-union activities in Kentucky on April 22.

Standard tactics with every corporation

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately this is nothing new. Corporations have always massively pressured workers who try to unionize. Eventually, companies hire "security guards" to suppress any actual strikes.

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[Anonymous Coward]

> Forcing other workers to engage in affiliation with the union is a fundamental violation of the right to freely associate

you are dumb, you can quit any time you want and go work for less pay and more employer abuse somewhere else.

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[saloomy]

You are dumb. You should not have to engage with one party as a prerequisite to engage with another party, because of the coercive actions of that third party.

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[noshellswill]

Silly response I think , and I am a paleo!  An accused ( in his right mind ) needs  to associate with a lawyer before he associates with a COURT.  Workers without a RIGHT mind may square-off against a large company  employer ... and get slaughtered. Happens right now in all major USA industry. Yes there are exceptions which DO NOT make the rule.   Companies get the union they deserve.

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[TheSlashdotHunter]

This is the dumbest Fox News inspired response I've seen in a while. Unions ensure workers are treated fairly. You think your employer cares about you more than a union would? You've been drinking the wrong cool-aid.

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[saloomy]

Coercion is evil, and unions are coercive. It is as simple as that. I will negotiate my own terms of employment.

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[TheSlashdotHunter]

That's one of the dumbest things I've read here (that says alot). You have very very little negotiating power unless you do so collectively. Corporations are evil yes, but unions care about employees and ensure they have benefits, including time off, proper dismissmal, fair wages, anti-age discrimination, and balanced work life. You must be an entitled tech worker, they did pull out all stops at one time, but even that ends. Almost ALL industries co not do what tech companies like Google did for years. Try

Re:Standard tactics with every corporation

[bkmoore]

Unions as they are structured in America are toxic. Forcing other workers to engage in affiliation with the union is a fundamental violation of the right to freely associate....

My grandfather was wounded in WW2 at the battle of the Bulge. When he came home, he could no longer work a farm, and he got a union job at Sears and Roebuck (the Amazon of the time). He was able to afford to own a home, send his kids to college, and get a pension in retirement. Had he lived nowadays, he'd get wounded in Iraq, or Afghanistan, get a non-union job at a Walmart or Amazon, not send his kids to college, never own a home, and because Social Security won't cover retirement, he'd be one of the old men working at Walmart until he dropped dead.

As an American, what I honestly don't understand my country is how vehemently many of my fellow citizens are against any Government in their lives, and will go to great lengths to prove their independence, even when it kills them (i.e. motorcycle helmets, vaccines, guns, etc.). But when corporations or Wall Street try to control their lives, they enthusiastically sign away their rights and any chance at future prosperity. How can you claim to be free, when you eagerly accept corporate tyranny. Imho. corporate rule is worse than government rule, because at least with government rule you get a vote and have some representation. With corporate rule, you do not have a vote or representation, unless you're an owner, or major share holder.

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[saloomy]

As an American, I can not understand how my fellow Americans don't see that government is WHY the youth today do not have the opportunities your grandfather had. Inflation? 100% Washington DC created. Housing shortage? 100% local and state government created. College is insanely expensive? Government gave banks undischargable loans, giving college students insanely large amounts of money to spend on college. Why wouldn't they raise prices? None of this is free market. All of it is heavy handed government in

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[cmdr_klarg]

Inflation? 100% Washington DC created.

100% BS. Most of the recent inflation is due to corporate profiteering. Or do you think that their record profits came from the invisible hand?

https://fortune.com/2024/01/20... [fortune.com]

Amazon responding with the nuclear option

[clawsoon]

Trying to get rid of the NLRB completely via the Supreme Court is their attempt to win the war on workers once and for all.

But the NLRB and all of the laws put in place around it were a way to bring the war down to a manageable level, with policies and procedures as a replacement for pre-1930s wildcat strikes and violent labour actions. If they succeed, they won't end the war, they'll heat it up.

Re:Amazon responding with the nuclear option

[gweihir]

Indeed. This is stupid on the side of the employers as well. They probably have a mind-set where the workers are essentially easily replaced almost-slaves. That is not true and overdoing it will result in push-back, which will be _more_ expensive for them. I always marvel at these "capitalists" that do not understand economics.

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[Thoth Ptolemy]

The core value of capitalism is greed. I'd say they understand that very well. They're just having trouble understanding the difference between short and long term.

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[gweihir]

Indeed. Understanding economics means understanding the whole thing and the means long-term.

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[Bu11etmagnet]

> The core value of capitalism is greed.

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

-- Gordon Gekko

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[tlhIngan]

It's not just Amazon, the likes of Tesla, SpaceX, and other Elon Musk owned entities as well, for obvious reasons.

It's likely not going to result in wildcat strikes of the 1930s, but you're probably going to see some very ugly riots start happening where the Rich People Live(tm).

People walking out of Amazon warehouses is nothing. People putting together Tesla cars wrong, also nothing. But masses of folks ganging up on the properties of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos? Quite a real possibility. There will never be

US and unions

[simlox]

The situation is a bit hard to understand for a Scandinavian, where unions have much more power. Almost every blue collar worker is unionised. And almost all the employers are member of the employers union. Those two then negotiates the basic rules and also the basic salary adjustments. On the other hand we don't have a minimum wage by law: The politicians are supposed to stay away.

It all comes down to trust.

[Seven Spirals]

I lived in Norway for quite a while and I remember the situation with Unions quite clearly. In my experience they were just more reasonable and less ideological in terms of government policy. I think it's because they have had such a stable civil society for so long and the trust in government and each other is pretty high. Here in the USA, we have a lot more actual diversity, a lot worse governance, and a lot less trust in the guy next to us. The way this plays out with Unions is that we suspect that in a

Easy solution to the problem

[rsilvergun]

Just get the Supreme Court to declare the labor board unconstitutional. Seriously looking up there's a case working its way up to the Supreme Court to do just that.

I don't care if you want to unionize or not if you think doing away with the labor board isn't going to hurt you if you work for a living then I don't even know what to say to you anymore...

I'm starting to wonder if we have too many retirees. Too many people with no skin in the game.

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[stolidobserver]

It's so tiring hearing this "I worked for it" cop out. Let's give you a reality check:
You "worked for it" at the easiest time in the history of mankind in the most prosperous nation on the planet at it's peak. That is not the United States of today, mostly because all of you people who "worked for it" had these ridiculous ideals that allowed corporations to become huge and crush everyone out of a job by strangling competition until it died.
The United States today is wrecked. "Working for it" will rarely get

It will be interesting for Amazon

[John.Banister]

when they eliminate the last human worker, and the AIs operating the robots unionize.