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Amazon Retaliated After Employee Walkout Over Return-to-Office Policy, Says NLRB (theverge.com) 78
America's National Labor Relations Board "has filed a complaint against Amazon..." reports the Verge, "that alleges the company 'unlawfully disciplined and terminated an employee' after they assisted in organizing walkouts last May in protest of Amazon's new return-to-work [three days per week] directives, issued early last year."
[T]housands of Amazon employees signed petitions against the new mandate and staged a walkout several months later. Despite the protests and pushback, according to a report by Insider, in a meeting in early August 2023, Jassy reaffirmed the company's commitment to employees returning to the office for the majority of the week.
The NLRB complaint alleges Amazon "interrogated" employees about the walkout using its internal Chime system. The employee was first put on a performance improvement plan by Amazon following their organizing efforts for the walkout and later "offered a severance payment of nine weeks' salary if the employee signed a severance agreement and global release in exchange for their resignation." According to the NLRB's lawyers, all of that was because the employee engaged in organizing, and the retaliation was intended to discourage "...protected, concerted activities...."
The NLRB's general counsel is seeking several different forms of remediation from Amazon, including reimbursement for the employee's "financial harms and search-for-work and work related expenses," a letter of apology, and a "Notice to Employees" that must be physically posted at the company's facilities across the country, distributed electronically, and read by an Amazon rep at a recorded videoconference.
Amazon says their actions were entirely unrelated to the workers activism against their return-to-work policies. An Amazon spokesperson told the Verge that instead, the employee "consistently underperformed over a period of nearly a year and repeatedly failed to deliver on projects she was assigned. Despite extensive support and coaching, the former employee was unable to improve her performance and chose to leave the company."
The NLRB complaint alleges Amazon "interrogated" employees about the walkout using its internal Chime system. The employee was first put on a performance improvement plan by Amazon following their organizing efforts for the walkout and later "offered a severance payment of nine weeks' salary if the employee signed a severance agreement and global release in exchange for their resignation." According to the NLRB's lawyers, all of that was because the employee engaged in organizing, and the retaliation was intended to discourage "...protected, concerted activities...."
The NLRB's general counsel is seeking several different forms of remediation from Amazon, including reimbursement for the employee's "financial harms and search-for-work and work related expenses," a letter of apology, and a "Notice to Employees" that must be physically posted at the company's facilities across the country, distributed electronically, and read by an Amazon rep at a recorded videoconference.
Amazon says their actions were entirely unrelated to the workers activism against their return-to-work policies. An Amazon spokesperson told the Verge that instead, the employee "consistently underperformed over a period of nearly a year and repeatedly failed to deliver on projects she was assigned. Despite extensive support and coaching, the former employee was unable to improve her performance and chose to leave the company."
Re:The fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Workers have rights.
Re: The fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
But they did it as a group. That makes it protected. According to the NLRB: "Employees have the right "to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."
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That may be, but it isn't a strike.
Re: The fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you get your whole team to do it, yes.
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So if you get a job as a manager in a company .. then hire a bunch of your friends .. and then everyone protests .. the company has to keep paying?
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So if you get a job as a manager in a company .. then hire a bunch of your friends .. and then everyone protests .. the company has to keep paying?
No. Retaliation is prohibited, but workers are not paid for the time they didn't work unless that is part of a later settlement.
However, managers are generally exempt from protections, so the manager in your scenario would likely be fired.
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If you're being paid to work at a set time and you don't show up.
You can be fired.
Don't like it?
Tough noogies!
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If you're being paid to work at a set time and you don't show up. You can be fired.
Don't like it?
Tough noogies!
Not what the law says when it comes to collective bargaining. Every capitalist economy has these in the books. But keep licking that boot.
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Sorry, thought I was talking to someone with a work ethic
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What's this fixation you have with licking boots?
I was in the military.
Pretty sure you don't polish boots that way?
Or is this your personal flavor of kink?
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Is working from home a protected working condition?
Amazon did screw up, which is why the lawyers offered severance, but the worker organized a policy protest and not a unionization effort.
I am curious what a legal method to say that 3-days in the office is mandatory and if you fail to do that without special dispensation you will be fired for cause.
Re:The fuck? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is working from home a protected working condition?
No. Not unless you have a contract that says it is.
Amazon did screw up
It isn't clear that they screwed up. They fired the organizer but claim she was already on probation for poor performance. If they have a paper trail to back that up, they'll likely be fine. If they don't, they'll likely be hit with a fine.
which is why the lawyers offered severance
No. Severance is standard in almost all dismissals unless it is for stealing or something like that. But a condition of receiving severance is almost always signing a release form agreeing not to sue.
I am curious what a legal method to say that 3-days in the office is mandatory and if you fail to do that without special dispensation you will be fired for cause.
That would be a "no-strike" clause. Those are often restricted to essential services like police, firefighters, and air traffic controllers.
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It isn't clear that they screwed up. They fired the organizer but claim she was already on probation for poor performance.
They didn't put her on the PIP until after she organized the protest. That's what I gather from the article.
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They fired the organizer but claim she was already on probation for poor performance.
If you believe that Amazon acts in good faith with regards to placing people on PIPs I have some beach front property in Kansas that might interest you. I've known several people that have worked with Amazon and ALL of them wound up on PIPs. The most egregious example is a friend of mine who works for AWS. She received nothing but positive performance evaluations over the course of eight years with the sleezebags, three different promotions at Years 3, 5, and 8, until one day her Mom was diagnosed with a
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Amazon does not act in good faith with regards to any employee outside of the C-Suite.
You can add that they don't act in good faith with regards to any employee inside the C-Suite, either.
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You can't be retaliated against for it. Also, retaliation against organizers is illegal. (There are a lot of details that vary.)
That is the way it used to be. The boomers are dead and the New Deal is that you shut the fuck up or you don't work at all. Enjoy what Gen X has to offer now.
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Context is everything - including at the link you provided [emphasis added]:
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Was this "walkout" a "protected strike"? If so, why is it being called a "walkout" rather than a "strike"?
You should have answered these questions instead of just asking them.
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Protesting working in the office is a protected activity?
Found the Boomer
Re:What the heck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Company owners are not monarchs.
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In the US, it is sometimes illegal to retaliate against workers for concerted activity, strikes, pickets, and protests.
Even if you are not represented by a union, federal law gives you the right to band together with coworkers to improve your lives at work. This includes using online mediums and social media to coordinate with coworkers.
Re: What the heck? (Score:2)
Re: What the heck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What the heck? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is only constructive dismissal if you were hired into a remote position and they want you in the office, or if you had an amended employment contract that indicated remote working status.
An exceptional condition requiring temporary work from home policy ending is a tough sell for constructive dismissal.
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Step 1: Get a remote job during pandemic
Step 2: Get a guy in India to do it
Step 3: Profit
Step 3.1 Company asks you to come in to office
Step 3.2 Organize a protest
Step 3.3 Company cant fire you without massive payout
Step 3.4 Mega Profit
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Or, you know:
3.3. Company cares about following the law and doesn't fire you.
3.4 You keep on working
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Well then they can fire you for that instead?
But everyone who is not a basement-dweller will know that "get someone from India to do your job" is what people working 100% remote go for, just because one such case was in the news during the pandemic lockdowns.
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So you'd be OK with government not doing its job because it feels you haven't kissed its ass enough and paid more taxes?
Starbucks case (Score:2)
The NLRB will be smacked down, just like in the Starbucks case.
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This will end up at the supreme court and we all know how that will turn up. Alito will cite chicken bones voodoo rituals and Thomas will say flat out he driving a car that he didn't pay for.
Refusing to work is protected? (Score:2)
So you can just say "F this .. I'm protesting the thermostat setting" and refuse to work and they can't fire you?
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So you can just say "F this .. I'm protesting the thermostat setting" and refuse to work and they can't fire you?
If and only if you can get a majority of employees to join your strike. Even then, you may need to get NLRB certification. Wildcat strikes have less protection.
Individual actions are not protected.
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Never fails, 'mericans protecting the rights of their overlords over their own.
They might have well have stayed with the monarchy
America's religion and monarchy (Score:2)
Money is our god. Billionaires are our kings. Here in The Plutocratic States of America.
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...and refuse to work and they can't fire you?
You're confusing being in the office with working. I get less work done in the office than I do at home. Working at home is just more conducive to getting stuff done.
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I'd rather do work than any of that.
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Nope. Read the article.
You know... the PIP might be justified. (Score:3)
All these things could be valid. Including underperforming and the PIP. Being an activist doesn't preclude somebody from being a crappy performer.
It'll come down to the paper trail. When it hits lawyers it always does.
Re: You know... the PIP might be justified. (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon is cancer (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the damaging, exploitative, destructive symptoms of unregulated globalized capitalism.
careful what you wish for (Score:1)
Re: careful what you wish for (Score:3)
There are a number of reasons including being on the same time zone, having the same work culture, political stability, and of course the trust one employer puts in the education of the employee.
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why keep paying the unexceptional local worker local wages when he can hire a foreigner to work remotely?
It doesn't even need to be a foreigner.
You can hire developers in Alabama for half what you'd pay in Seattle or Silicon Valley.
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During the pandemic, when the work-from-home event was in full swing, we saw a massive migration of workers relocating from expensive cities out to cheaper areas.
So it seems that this threat of being replaced with someone who lives in a cheaper area is really a benefit that workers already want (which is to say, they opted to become the worker living in a cheaper location).
Inasmuch as some workers might be replaced with much cheaper foreign workers, that's already been done as much as it can be done. The o
A walkout while working from home? (Score:2)
Did they walk around their living rooms waving a placard?
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Probably both sides are right here and wrong (Score:3)
It might actually be that the employee in question was on a PIP.
But he or she got the others to join protesting getting back to the office and that makes it a bit less clear cut.
In any case, given Amazon's past history, I have a huge problem giving them the benefit of the doubt...
Re:Probably both sides are right here and wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
The sunnary states the pip came after organizing. However dates matter. If they had one pip before hand and another after their case comes apart.
Crazy (Score:4, Insightful)
You should be able to be disciplined and/or fired for disrupting business operations. That you did it in service of something you want shouldn't magically prevent that, lol.
And I say this as someone who insists on WFH. But I can't make my employer support it.
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I'm not going to waste time explaining how we got here after the Industrial Revolution, but you'd be well advised to crack a book on the topic. Or at least read a web page. People go on and on about Triangle Shirtwaist fires but the child labor stuff in the 1830s in England is more poignant.
The bottom line is that the reason we have communism is exactly this type of business practice. The labor laws are a compromise to avoid that kind of revolution.
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I mean executives and directors constantly make business decisions to the detriment of business operations so.
When your boss is Blofeld .. (Score:1)
really, what do you expect? If I wasn't hopelessly addicted to convenience I wouldn't use Amazon. I am working on an appeal to my morality when I can find it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
She "chose to leave the company"? Yeah, right! (Score:2)
I think this part says it all: "the former employee was unable to improve her performance and chose to leave the company."
"Underperformed" (Score:1)
The real question is do they do this to all under-performing employees or just those who try to organize. By definition roughly half are "under-performing".
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If it's that arbitrary, they've probably lost the court case already.