A federal administrative judge has ruled that Amazon violated labor laws at two Staten Island warehouses last year ahead of union elections.
Amazon executives illegally threatened warehouse workers to stop increasing their wages and benefits if they voted to unionize, a judge hearing the case for the National Labor Relations Board ruled Monday. Judge Benjamin W. Green also ruled that Amazon illegally deleted a post on a digital message board by an employee who invited colleagues to sign a petition circulated by an Amazon union. The union tried to represent workers at two warehouses.
The ruling ordered Amazon to stop unfair labor practices and posted a statement saying it would not engage in them.
In the same ruling, the judge rejected multiple allegations made by labor board prosecutors, including that Amazon said take-home pay would drop if workers unionized; Amazon promised to improve a program that would subsidize workers if they chose not to unionize. their education costs; Amazon says workers will be fired if they join a union and don’t pay union dues.
The judge found that the allegations were either exaggerated, or that the conduct was not illegal in the final hearing.
Amazon can appeal the ruling to the labor board in Washington.
“We are pleased that the judge dismissed 19 — nearly all — allegations in this case,” Amazon spokeswoman Mary Kate Paradis said in a statement, adding: “The facts continue to show that the It’s hard to do the right thing by working as a team.”
The union declined to comment.
The violations occurred at a large Amazon warehouse called JFK8, where workers voted to unionize in elections announced in April, and at a smaller nearby warehouse, called LDJ5, where workers voted against unionization the following month.
In the weeks leading up to the election, Amazon convened warehouse workers for dozens of anti-union meetings in which executives questioned the credibility of Amazon’s unions, highlighted the high cost of union dues and warned that unionized workers’ Things could get worse.
The judge’s ruling set aside a broader question raised by labor board prosecutors: whether employers can compel workers to attend such meetings.
The meetings are legal, based on labor board precedent, and are common among employers facing union campaigns. But Jennifer Abruzzo, the board’s general counsel, argued that the precedent was in tension with federal labor law and sought to challenge it.
Judge Green concluded he had no power to overturn precedent. “I must apply existing laws,” he wrote. Ms. Abruzzo’s office could appeal, asking the labor board in Washington to overturn the precedent.
