“We were completely within our rights to be there,” Litrell informed The Washington Post. But he mentioned that didn’t cease a low-level supervisor from confronting him later to ask, “ ‘How’s the revolution going?’ ”
Employees at Amazon amenities round the nation whose union hopes had been buoyed by the labor victory at a warehouse in Staten Island in April say in labor board filings and interviews that the company has been calling police, firing staff and usually cracking down on labor organizing since that historic win. Amazon has been accused of illegally firing staff in Chicago, New York and Ohio, calling the police on staff in Kentucky and New York, and retaliating towards staff in New York and Pennsylvania, in what staff say is an escalation of long-running union-busting actions by the company.
It’s an indication that, at the same time as lawmakers demand Amazon drop its objections to the union win in Staten Island, which it started arguing in a listening to on Monday, the nation’s second-largest non-public employer will proceed to place up fierce opposition to any wave of union momentum.
“They’re scared,” mentioned Seth Goldstein, an legal professional representing the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which pulled off the victory in Staten Island. “They want to stop the organizing, and this is how they want to do it.”
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
“Like every company, we have basic expectations of employees at all levels of the organization when it comes to attendance and performance, safety, and personal conduct,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel mentioned in an announcement. “Whether an employee supports a certain cause or group doesn’t factor into the difficult decision of whether or not to let someone go. The allegations mentioned in this story are without merit, and we look forward to showing that through the appropriate process.”
The labor board listening to during which Amazon plans to make its case for overturning the union victory in Staten Island started Monday morning.
Though the JFK8 warehouse is in Staten Island, Monday’s listening to is being overseen by the labor board’s regional Phoenix workplace. National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo moved the proceedings after Amazon argued that the Brooklyn workplace was unfairly biased towards the company and had mishandled the election there. On Monday morning, attorneys representing Amazon argued that representatives from the NLRB’s Brooklyn workplace needs to be excluded from the proceedings fully. Previously, Amazon had filed a movement requesting that the common public, together with the media, needs to be barred from attending the listening to, however a labor board choose denied the movement final week.
A lawyer for the Amazon Labor Union mentioned on Monday that Amazon’s arguments had been a part of an general “strategy of delay.”
Even if the try by Amazon to get the Staten Island election outcomes thrown out fails, it’ll most likely be months or years earlier than staff reach bargaining for a contract. Meanwhile, an try and unionize a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., is ongoing, as each side contest the outcomes of an undecided union election that passed off there in March. A second Staten Island warehouse voted towards unionizing final month.
“While Amazon likes to boast about its aggressive beginning pay, its beneficiant advantages, and its assist for choose progressive coverage objects, this ’pro-worker‘ sentiment fades away the moment its own workers state they want to exercise their legal right to collectively bargain,” Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) wrote in a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Friday.
Nonetheless, the original victory in Staten Island — and a revote in Alabama — triggered outreach from hundreds of new workers interested in unionizing some of the company’s warehouses, in response to the unions.
In December, in response to allegations of union-busting throughout the nation, Amazon made a cope with the labor board during which it agreed to make union organizing at its amenities simpler.
But staff say Amazon has continued to push again towards their efforts — serving to immediate a wider array of filings with the NLRB.
The company declined to remark.
To cope with all the requests for authorized assist from Amazon employees, the ALU’s Goldstein mentioned, the upstart union has accepted assist from 21 Harvard and Yale legislation college students who volunteered their companies.
Other unions have additionally stepped as much as present authorized assist and monetary sources. In Pennsylvania, an Amazon worker who claims to have been illegally retaliated towards is being represented by the American Postal Workers Union, which has expressed curiosity in increasing its membership to incorporate extra employees of personal corporations.
A union lawyer declined to remark on the case. The Postal Workers Union didn’t reply to questions on whether or not it’s attempting to prepare Amazon employees, although it has publicly stated its intent to assist them. Amazon’s Nantel mentioned the cost is with out advantage.
In the two months since the ALU’s victory, greater than half a dozen Amazon staff declare to have been fired in what they name an effort to intimidate others who is perhaps all in favour of unionizing. Four Amazon staff in New York City’s Queens borough mentioned in an April filing that the company discharged them for “protesting terms and conditions of employment.”
A employee in Cleveland, Joey Desatnik, mentioned in a May 16 unfair-labor-practice cost that Amazon had terminated him to “discourage union activities and support among his fellow employees.” And in Chicago in May, Amazon fired warehouse employee Rakyle Johnson, a member of Amazonians United who alleged in a labor board submitting earlier this month that Amazon fired him as a result of he “joined or supported a labor organization.”
Amazon’s Nantel disputed these allegations, saying Desatnik was terminated for aggressively avoiding a safety screening and that Johnson “was terminated for a serious safety violation that involved jamming an object in a conveyor belt to stop production.” Johnson and Desatnik didn’t reply to requests for remark.
But Goldstein, the ALU legal professional, mentioned, “I think there’s been more of a crackdown.”
One alleged sufferer of that crackdown is Pat Cioffi, an ALU organizer who mentioned he was pleasant with administration at JFK8, the Staten Island warehouse, earlier than he grew to become a vocal union supporter following the arrest of union chief Chris Smalls. Amazon fired Cioffi on Thursday; in an electronic mail, Nantel mentioned Cioffi was terminated as a result of an inside investigation discovered that he verbally and bodily assaulted a feminine supervisor. But Cioffi denies it and informed The Post his termination was retaliation for union exercise.
“I was very pro-union, and very vocal for the union and getting people to join our union, and they didn’t like that,” mentioned Cioffi, who demanded to be reinstated to his job in an unfair-labor-practice cost with the NLRB on Friday.
Goldstein can be representing two staff at a facility in Clay, N.Y., who beforehand labored to prepare the JFK8 warehouse. One of the staff, Ashley Mercer, alleges that she was made to pick up cigarette butts in a parking lot, and the different, Jason Main, alleges he was fired in retaliation for union organizing.
Nantel mentioned Mercer was not disciplined and that Main was fired as a result of he “put himself and his fellow employees at risk on a number of occasions, which led to an injury to a co-worker.” Goldstein, their lawyer, mentioned Main denies these claims.
When Kentucky-based employee Litrell heard about the Amazon Labor Union’s win in New York, he mentioned he knew it had the potential to mobilize staff at his warehouse. Though he’d thought of affiliating with ALU, Litrell and his fellow organizers initially determined going with a extra established union — the International Association of Machinists — was a safer wager. Machinists spokesperson Jonathan Battaglia mentioned the union is “gauging support” for an organizing drive in Campbellsville however hasn’t launched an official marketing campaign.
Litrell mentioned he’s in the means of including the incident during which Amazon known as police on him, which the sheriff’s workplace confirmed to The Post, to the checklist of unlawful retaliation costs filed with the NLRB.
According to a May 6 submitting, Litrell, who has acquired written warnings from Amazon, is accusing the company of “administering discipline and harassing” him due to his “vocal support for the Union.”
Nantel mentioned no employees in Campbellsville had been disciplined due to union involvement and that “non-Amazon employees were asked to leave private property.”
The street to holding a union election in Campbellsville may very well be a protracted one. Already, Litrell mentioned, members of his organizing committee have give up out of concern that Amazon will study of their involvement and hearth them. Workers in Campbellsville can’t afford to lose their Amazon jobs, Litrell mentioned.
“There’s other factories and such, but you’d have to go outside of Campbellsville to find a decent-paying job. Campbellsville is dependent on Amazon — it’s like a company town,” he mentioned. “The other jobs are fast food or a telemarketing company and some small factories that don’t pay worth a damn.”
“Amazon is the best employer in Campbellsville,” he mentioned.