Amazon settles with NLRB to give workers power to organize
NEW YORK — Under pressure to improve worker rights, Amazon has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to allow its employees to freely organize — and without retaliation.
According to the settlement, the online behemoth said it would reach out to its warehouse workers — former and current — via email who were on the job anytime from March 22 to now to notify them of their organizing rights. The settlement outlines that Amazon workers, which number 750,000 in the U.S., have more room to organize within the buildings. For example, Amazon pledged it will not threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time.
According to the terms of the settlement, the labor board will be able to more easily sue Amazon — without going through a laborious process of administrative hearings — if it found that the online company reneged on its agreement.
“Whether a company has 10 employees or a million employees, it must abide by the National Labor Relations Act,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a statement.
Amazon.com Inc., based in Seattle, couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Labor Center, called the settlement “unprecedented” and said it represents a sea change in attitude at Amazon, which is known to deploy fierce measures against union activity at its warehouses.
“Amazon has been very consistent in holding a strong anti-union position, “Wong said. “This opens up a new opportunities for unionization there as well as at other companies.”
In November, the labor board ordered a new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, based on objections to the first vote that took place in April, in which the union was rejected. The board had not yet determined the date for the second election, and it hasn’t determined whether it will be conducted in person or by mail.