Amazon furious against workers for unionizing
Amazon announced that it is planning to object to the results of the vote
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Amazon JFK8 union organizer Jason Anthony waves as he speaks to the press about preliminary results regarding the vote to unionize, outside the NLRB offices in Brooklyn, New York, April 1, 2022. (Reuters)
After workers at a New York warehouse voted to organize with the Amazon Labor Union, Amazon announced that it is planning to object to the results of the vote, according to a deadline extension request Amazon filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Amazon is scurrying to scoop up so-called evidence that the union “threatened employees to coerce them into voting yes,” and “threatened immigrants with the loss of benefits if they did not vote.”
According to Kayla Blado, the spokesperson for the NLRB, Amazon hasn't filed its final objections, and it would have to wait till Friday midnight to do so. The company has until April 22nd to file the "proof" it claims to have.
When news came out that Amazon employees voted to unionize - 2,654 to 2,131 - it posed as a landmark victory against Amazon, notorious for being anti-union. Amazon then released a statement saying that is evaluating its options regarding the vote. Those include “filing objections based on the inappropriate and undue influence by the NLRB.”
The NLRB sued Amazon for firing its employees as a retaliative measure for unionizing, issuing a complaint that Amazon was "threatening, surveilling, and interrogating" workers before the election happened.
The NLRB, furthermore, looks to stop Amazon from forcing employees to attend a "captive audience" where workers are brainwashed with anti-union rhetoric.
“To say that the Amazon Labor Union was threatening employees is really absurd,” said a lawyer working for the ALU. The union is made up of Amazon's employees, so the allegation that Amazon employees are threatening Amazon employees with losing benefits does not make sense.
