?A National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) official has rejected Amazon’s initial challenge to the union win at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y. We’ve gathered articles on the news from SHRM Online and other media outlets.
No Inappropriate Influence
An NLRB hearing officer said the company hadn’t shown that the union victory was inappropriately influenced. Amazon had contested the union election, saying that the NLRB region where the election was held, as well as union organizers, had inappropriately swayed the vote.
Amazon’s Case
Amazon accused the NLRB’s Brooklyn, N.Y., office of violating labor law by appearing to support the union drive. Amazon also alleged that labor organizers intimidated workers to vote in their favor.
“It is our hope that the Regional Director for Region 28 can expedite our certification and that the NLRB enforces Amazon’s legal obligation to negotiate with the workers of the ALU [Amazon Labor Union],” the union said in a release posted to Twitter.
(CNBC)
Amazon Will Appeal
“As we showed throughout the hearing with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pages of documents, both the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the outcome of the election and we don’t believe it represents what the majority of our team wants,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel stated, noting that the company would appeal the hearing officer’s conclusion.
(NPR)
Continued Work on Unionization
Organized labor continued to work toward unionizing other Amazon sites. New organizing campaigns have sprung up in Kentucky, California and North Carolina, and Amazon workers at a warehouse near Albany, N.Y., are slated to vote on unionization in the coming months.
Significance of Union Victory
The Amazon win at the Staten Island JFK8 warehouse was “extremely significant,” according to Dan Altchek, an attorney with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr in Baltimore and New York City. “Other Amazon employees have seen that an organizing drive—one without financial or other material support from any established labor union, it appears—can withstand a campaign by the employer with virtually unlimited resources. This could embolden employees at other Amazon locations who are interested in unionizing.”