NLRB Accuses Amazon of Illegally Calling Cops on Workers to Crush Union Campaign
Brooklyn, New York, United States. October 25, 2021: Amazon's Staten Island warehouse workers file petition for union election.
Photo: Luigi Morris - Shutterstock
Amazon “has been interfering with, restraining, and coercing” workers exercising their rights, the official wrote.
A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board submitted a filing on Monday accusing Amazon of illegally calling the police on workers and other unlawful union-busting tactics during its effort to crush an organizing campaign at a warehouse near Albany, New York.
In the complaint, first reported by Bloomberg, the NLRB official writes that Amazon “has been interfering with, restraining, and coercing” workers as they try to exercise their right to organize under federal law.
During Amazon’s attempt to stifle pro-union workers at the Castleton-on-Hudson, New York facility last year, the company “prohibited staff from discussing the union during their work time while allowing them to discuss other non-work topics,” according to Bloomberg.
The corporate giant also subjected workers to mandatory “captive audience” meetings aimed at dissuading workers from unionizing and “promulgated a policy prohibiting employees from being on the property before or after their shifts in order to discourage union organizing,” the outlet reported.
Seth Goldstein, Amazon Labor Union’s attorney, told Bloomberg that “Amazon was so outrageous in their attacks on the union that it was impossible to successfully organize” at the Castleton-on-Hudson facility. Employees at the warehouse voted 406-206 against unionization, a result union leaders said was heavily affected by Amazon’s relentless union-busting.
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