Amazon and company counsel violated federal labor laws by questioning and threatening employees about their union activities and racially disparaging organizers trying to unionize a Staten Island warehouse, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled.
The NLRB said Friday that Administrative Law Judge Lauren Esposito found that Amazon “committed multiple violations” of federal labor law at its largest warehouse in New York, called JFK8, between May and October 2021, a period that saw an increase in organizational activity. .
In April 2022, workers voted to join the Amazon Labor Union, a grassroots group of current and former workers, becoming Amazon’s first union facility in the U.S. Since that victory, the group has been fighting to secure a contract with Amazon.
The judge in New York heard testimony from Amazon employees, managers and labor consultants in virtual hearings that lasted nearly a year. Esposito found that Amazon illegally seized organizational pamphlets from employees that were distributed on site and conducted surveillance of employee organizational activities.
Amazon also violated labor laws when it sent an employee at a neighboring JFK8 facility home early from his shift and changed his work in retaliation for supporting the union, the judge found. The employee, Daequan Smith, sorted packages at a delivery station called DYY6, below JFK8, and was later fired in November 2021. The union claimed Smith’s firing was in retaliation for his union activities.
Additionally, the judge found that Amazon violated the law when a “union avoidance” consultant, Bradley Moss, who was hired by the company, threatened employees, telling them that it would be “futile” for them to vote to join the ALU. Amazon and other companies often hire labor consultants like Moss, referred to as “persuaders,” to dissuade workers from unionizing. Company to spend $14 million on anti-union consultants in 2022, Huffington Post reported in Marchciting disclosure forms filed with the Department of Labor.
As a result of the decision, Amazon will be required to post notices reminding workers of their rights at the JFK8 and DYY6 facilities. The company must also make Smith “whole for any lost earnings and other benefits,” the NLRB said.
In an exchange with a JFK8 employee, Natalie Monarrez, Moss discussed the union campaign at another Amazon facility, BHM1, in Bessemer, Alabama. Monarrez said Moss told her the Bessemer campaign was “not a serious union effort,” but a “Black Lives Matter protest of social injustice.”
“Moss then pointed to the front of JFK8’s warehouse and said, ‘Like these guys out here, they’re just a bunch of thugs,'” Esposito wrote in her judgment, citing testimony from Monares.
Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards said in a statement that the company is reviewing the judge’s decision and weighing its next steps based on the decision.
“We disagree with some decisions within the judgment, but we are pleased that the judge agreed that the person who was fired should not be reinstated,” Hards added.
Moss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BHM1 workers voted against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Stores Union in April 2021, but the election results were overturned after the NLRB found that Amazon improperly interfered in the vote. By-elections were held last year, but the results remain very close.
Amazon’s labor record has been heavily scrutinized, especially as unionization ramped up in its warehouse and delivery workforce during the Covid pandemic. The company faces 240 open or settled unfair labor practice charges in 26 states, according to the NLRB, related to a range of allegations, including its conduct around union elections.
The company also clashed with Chris Smalls, a former Amazon employee and one of the leaders of ALU. A memo leaked by Vice revealed that David Zapolsky, Amazon’s general counsel, had referred to Smalls, a black man, as “not smart or imaginative” and recommended making him “the face” of efforts to organize employees.
Amazon continues to challenge the results of the JFK8 election, as well as the conduct of the NLRB and the union during the race. The agency certified the election results in January.
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