Amazon gets labor board complaint on failure to bargain with NY union

11:19 am Thursday, July 13th, 2023

By Chandni Shah

(Reuters) -Amazon.com was hit with a complaint on Wednesday for refusing to bargain with a New York workers’ union, a spokesperson for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) said.

The NLRB general counsel, which acts as a prosecutor, is seeking remedies that include an order for Amazon to bargain in good faith with the union representing more than 8,300 workers at its JFK8 fulfillment center, the spokesperson said.

Workers at the facility, located in the New York City borough of Staten Island, voted to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) last year, a first for the company in the United States.

However, the e-commerce giant has challenged the results before the labor board, delaying any discussions with the union until the matter is resolved. The company’s challenge has already been struck down once by the labor board in January.

ALU President Chris Smalls said he was pleased to see the NLRB issue the complaint to Amazon.

“This latest NLRB complaint is nothing new. The validity of the election is still being challenged through the legal process,” an Amazon spokesperson told Reuters in an email. “As we’ve said since the beginning, we don’t believe this election process was fair, legitimate, or representative of the majority of what our team wants.”

Earlier this year, an NLRB judge ruled that Amazon illegally threatened to withhold raises and benefits from workers at two New York City warehouses if they voted to unionize.

Amazon has faced dozens of complaints from workers and the ALU as the union attempts to organize warehouses across the country. The company has generally denied wrongdoing.

The NLRB complaint also comes as dozens of Amazon warehouse workers in New York sued the ALU on Monday, alleging that top union officials were refusing to hold democratic elections to fill leadership posts.

(Additional reporting by Shubham Kalia and Urvi Dugar; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee and Sohini Goswami)