US Labor Board Sees 'Merit' in Complaints Against Amazon as Second Warehouse Fails to Unionize (cnbc.com) 86
Amazon defeated an attempt by a second warehouse to unionize, CNBC reports — after "holding mandatory worker meetings to persuade its employees not to unionize."
But now the U.S. government's National Labor Relations Board "has found merit in a union charge that Amazon violated labor law..." The labor board has in the past allowed employees to mandate such meetings, which are routinely held at companies like Amazon and Starbucks during union drives. But in a memo sent to the agency's field offices last month, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said she believes the meetings, often called "captive audience meetings," are at odds with labor law, and would seek to get them outlawed... An NLRB spokesperson said the agency will issue a complaint against Amazon unless the retailer agrees to a settlement. If the company doesn't settle, the complaint would trigger an administrative court process where both parties can litigate the case....
The agency also found merit in an accusation from the union that the company indicated to workers they could be fired if they voted to unionize, and threatened to withhold benefits should they chose to do so, according to an email from Matt Jackson, an attorney with the NLRB's field office in Brooklyn.
"These allegations are false and we look forward to showing that through the process," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement.
In addition, an Amazon spokesperson tells CNBC, "These meetings have been legal for over 70 years."
But now the U.S. government's National Labor Relations Board "has found merit in a union charge that Amazon violated labor law..." The labor board has in the past allowed employees to mandate such meetings, which are routinely held at companies like Amazon and Starbucks during union drives. But in a memo sent to the agency's field offices last month, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo said she believes the meetings, often called "captive audience meetings," are at odds with labor law, and would seek to get them outlawed... An NLRB spokesperson said the agency will issue a complaint against Amazon unless the retailer agrees to a settlement. If the company doesn't settle, the complaint would trigger an administrative court process where both parties can litigate the case....
The agency also found merit in an accusation from the union that the company indicated to workers they could be fired if they voted to unionize, and threatened to withhold benefits should they chose to do so, according to an email from Matt Jackson, an attorney with the NLRB's field office in Brooklyn.
"These allegations are false and we look forward to showing that through the process," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement.
In addition, an Amazon spokesperson tells CNBC, "These meetings have been legal for over 70 years."
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Re: Awww (Score:2, Troll)
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This is rated as "interestting"? Really?
Ok, morons, let me explain the facts of life to you: unlike any of you, I looked it up, and the union boss who gets paid the most... earns significantly less than the President of the US (who earns $440k/yr). Meanwhile, how many millions/year does the head of Apple, or Bezos, or Musk make?
You have this utter delusion that unions are rich, and the poor, suffering Amazon, etc, are having *such* a hard time of it because of them.
Re: Awww (Score:5, Insightful)
What negotiating power does a warehouse worker have alone? They have a turnover rate of 150%, their boss won't bat an eye if they quit.
Union members are shown to be paid better than their non-union counterparts so even with union dues they're coming out ahead. There's strong opposition to them because companies know this and will do anything to convince their employees otherwise.
Re: Awww (Score:2)
Re: Awww (Score:2)
Re: Awww (Score:2)
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If your coworkers vote to unionize by a majority, you are then forced to pay union dues
Maybe the USA shouldn't have such antiquated labor laws. In many Western nations you are not required to do this.
Re: Awww (Score:2)
Re:Awww (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out the middle class does not want to be exploited by union bosses and tithe 10% of their salary to them.
Huh? Unions don't have dues of 10% of salary. You're thinking religions; they tithe 10%.
Typical unions have dues around 1%.
Why are you posting about unions when apparently you don't know anything about unions?
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Yeah, it's better. When you hit 1%, suddenly the union gives you more than it takes.
Re: Awww (Score:4, Interesting)
Nice! The union gives you 2%+ more? Guaranteed? In writing? Amazing that workers would vote to get 2% (and up) more cash. If only they were as smart as you!
When I retired from my union job, I paid about 2% in union dues. And in exchange for that I averaged 2% gross salary increases yearly over many years.
And in exchange they took their 2% of those increases as well. Still a good deal for mathematically literate people.
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Eliminating raises will not stop inflation, and I'd rather be one of the people getting those raises than one of the people not. There are plenty of them out there, and it do
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As evidence for your claim, I present 4 decades of stagnant wages with a non-zero inflation rate. In that same time, corporate profits have set several records and executive pay is up 300%. If the Dow returned to merely '80s levels it would be described as a historic blood bath.
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Keep licking capitalist boots.
Re: Awww (Score:2)
Maybe if you get a full time job. But starting out part time the UFCW takes 4-10% of your check
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Turns out the middle class does not want to be exploited by union bosses and tithe 10% of their salary to them. Guess socialism is not coming after all. But great try Slashdot! We will try again comrade!
Yeah, I don't want no unions getting in the way of those wonderful, kind, considerate, dignified managers in Amazon warehouses who only have our best interests at heart.
Re: Awww (Score:2)
I am not pro union, but if employees get treated like garbage, or near so, then it is hardly surprising theyâ(TM)ll want to unionise.
Why pay another entity to protect your interests, if your interests are already fairly covered by your employer?
Additionally if your employer is making so much money that it is stupid, while you are suffering the minimum, then unionising is the only real way to right this wrongs, unless they are pre-emptively correcting the imbalance.
Again far from being pro union and fee
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That's stupid. The average union dues equal to about $400 a year. That's $15 biweekly.
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Because for that 400, they get:
1)Thousands, usually tens of thousands, more pay per year. I'll give you the 400 if you give me 10k back, eh?
I'll use numbers from epi.org, a group that MediaBiasFactCheck rates as "Overall, we rate the Economic Policy Institute Left-Center Biased based on economic positions that favor liberal policies. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record." Epi.org has no links to unions that I can find.
The report link: https://www. [epi.org]
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Epi.org has no links to unions that I can find.
I don't think you have looked much.
directly from wikipedia: Eight labor unions made a five-year funding pledge to EPI at its inception: AFSCME, United Auto Workers, United Steelworkers, United Mine Workers, International Association of Machinists, Communications Workers of America, Service Employees International Union, and United Food and Commercial Workers Union.[15] According to EPI, about 29% of its funding between 2005 and 2009 was supplied by labor unions and about 53% came from foundation grants.[7]
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Thanks for the info. That certainly makes their numbers more suspect.
However, I looked around at other information on union wages vs non-unionized, and I couldn't find anyone, even business magazines like Forbes, that didn't claim that union wages are generally higher.
Why do people think that union dues is wasted money? It just doesn't make any sense. Paying 400$ per year for collective bargaining power is a great deal most of the time. Wages aren't even the only thing, unionized positions often have much b
Re: Awww (Score:2)
I don't really get the voting requirement. Gou should be allowed to join whatever union you like without the employer having anything to say about it.
Where I work we have two different unions, and it's up to you to decide if you want to join or not. 'Freedom to organize' law.
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Confusion. (Score:1)
Seems confusing...
The National Labor Relations Board has found merit in a union charge that Amazon violated labor law in New York City’s Staten Island by holding mandatory worker meetings to persuade its employees not to unionize.
An Amazon meeting.
The labor board has in the past allowed employees to mandate such meetings, which are routinely held at companies like Amazon and Starbucks during union drives.
Why would employees "mandate" an Amazon meeting?
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Typo [Re:Confusion.] (Score:2)
It's a typo. They meant employers mandating such meetings.
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Fuck 'em (Score:1)
If the almost equally long lived precedent of Roe can be overturned, there's no reason the interpretation of what is and isn't considered interfering with efforts at organizing/unionizing can't be changed as well.
I'm surprised libertarians aren't freaking out (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a "Small Government" Libertarian Overturning Roe is the biggest expansion of government power in history.
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Re: I'm surprised libertarians aren't freaking out (Score:5, Informative)
In the wake of the passage of the 14th amendment, before the neutering of it's reach to the states and the elimination of the P&I Clause's meaning in the Slaughterhouse cases, multiple states which had them began repealing their miscegination laws. None of the ones that had them repealed their abortion laws.
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As a follow up, the federal government outlawed slavery even though some states wanted to keep it. I'm supposing in your eyes that was a giant federal overreach as well.
I think I see the trouble (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if it's a Federal jack boot or a State jack boot, I don't want a jack boot at my neck. But how about you? Do you have a preference for which Jack boot is on your throat? To be honest about 1/3rd of the country does, supporting Authoritarians as long as they're of their preferred brand (tankies on the left, alt-right on the right).
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Maybe the fact that they're not freaking out about it should tell you something?
Indeed it does tell us something. It tells us that libertarians don't actually care about liberty.
Reversing Roe v Wade removes a large federal power grab and moves a lot of power back to the states
Reversing Roe v. Wade removes not merely your right to make your own decisions about your own body, but also removes your right to privacy. If you think that this will only affect your medical decisions, and not everything else about your life, you are naïve.
And reversing it doesn't "remove a large federal power grab." It does exactly the opposite: it allows a large power grab by the states.
Not necessarily (Score:3)
It doesn't help that the left wing makes absolutely zero attempt to reach across the aisle and explain issues in terms th
This is not hard [Re: I'm surprised libertarian... (Score:2)
State power is better than federal power
"You have rights" --> personal liberty
The State has rights over you --> not personal liberty.
This is not hard.
The fact that libertarians are fine with states taking power away from individuals shows that libertarians don't actually care about liberty.
But then, most people who pretend that they're libertarians aren't.
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They can change both NLRB administrative rules and overturn NLRB administrative court precedent, what they can't do is penalize Amazon retroactively for something they allowed up to this point. Constitutional Ex Post Facto Law prohibition applies to judicial construction (with some caveats) for as long as the US Supreme Court says it does.
We are changing the rules (Score:2)
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Nah, the NLRB is just bluffing.
If the administrative court judges try to get too creative with ex post facto law making they'll just get their wings clipped. The current US supreme court ain't all that friendly to liberals.
How are americans so scared of unions? (Score:1, Flamebait)
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The 0.1% ers have to keep getting richer and richer and screw the wage slaves. If they could get rid of the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour so that they could pay $1.00 per hour they could. Now that Roe vs Wade is history what's next on the hit list? Making unions illegal? removing all rights for workers?
Other nations get on very well with all the things that the mega rich (And the GQP politicians in their pay) hate so much?
It is already too costly for around 50% of workers to even rent a tiny apartment.
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There's been a decades Long multi-billion Dollar (Score:3, Interesting)
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Because unions in the US are corrupt and have 0 problems destroying the businesses they're attached to.
Not unlike a virus, really.
Plus they're creepy as shit; the first union meeting I ever went to the slime ball kept calling me "brother". Some serious revolutionary communist vibes.
Then again, I don't need the protections of a union to make my cash; I'm competent. If a company doesn't want to pay me what I'm worth then I have zero problems finding employment elsewhere. Maybe if I were a life-long fuck up
Re: How are americans so scared of unions? (Score:2)
Why was this modded as Flamebait ?
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It's like how they are scared of socialism; they've lapped up all the scaremongering from the corporate-owned media over decades, and don't realize they've been lied to by people with huge agendas.
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I've worked for ab
Re: The trollbots are on fire today (Score:2)
I am not a dime a dozen. While capable of a much higher level of living, i have lived in dirt poor motels, in the worst part of cities. What do I have to say? The people there are just like you or me. They have divine fire in them like you or me.
The greatest waste in this country is not understanding the potential the people have. So long as classism, the idea that being born into a certain group - the idea behind slavery - entitles us to higher things, still has root in this nation, this nation will wallow
I wish Bezos would take on this challenge. (Score:2)
As he has taken on many before. He is capable. Jeff, everyone who works for you is a god or goddess. Every one of them, at their core, has a highest level of expression where they are rendering profound service to humanity, but by being themselves. Your highest level is not in beating them into acting by machines, but in matching their natural self expression to world help. Dont be a lazy ass when it matters this much. If you need help, call me, or someone like me. This is not 1932. The old dynamics are gon
so let me see if I understand (Score:3)
These meetings HAVE BEEN ALLOWED for scores of years by the NLRB, and yet somehow Amazon doing it is heavily implied by the article and summary to be somehow illegitimate?
You know that unions aren't mandatory, and that a lot of people actually vote against them for a host of reasons? Not just being tricked or intimidated by the company?
To wit, my mother in law was the copier lady at her kids school.
Being a school employee, she was mandatorily in the union, she didn't get a choice. Union dues (not cheap) were deducted from her check. When she wanted to go up a union meeting and vote on an issue, she was told she was entitled to neither as she was part time.
LITERALLY, taxation without representation, something we used to object to in this country?
Unions have an important purpose. Like any monopoly, they quickly grow corrupt and greedy, and need to be refreshed or expunged.