National Labor Board Files Complaint About Amazon CEO's Union CommentsThe federal agency that handles labor issues in the U.S. alleges the e-commerce CEO made comments that broke labor laws after the JFK8 Staten Island warehouse union election.
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The National Labor Relations Board — which runs unionization recognition and elections in the U.S. — filed a complaint on Wednesday about comments made by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy,The Washington Postreported.
投诉,NLRB声称Jassy violated labor laws by making comments about unions in press interviews in April and June.
Those interviews took place after the company's Staten Island warehouse unionized in April, the first Amazon warehouse to do so. Amazon haspushedback against unionization efforts. Itlost a bidto overturn the April union election in September.
The NLRB has alreadytussledwith Amazon over its unionization-related practices. This complaint specifically discusses Jassy's mid-April interview with CNBC'sSquawk Boxand one he gave on Bloomberg Television in the summer.
In the CNBC one, hesaid, "At a place like Amazon that empowers employees… they can go meet in a room, decide how [to] change it and change it. That type of empowerment doesn't happen when you have unions. It's much more bureaucratic, it's much slower. I also think people are better off having direct connections with their managers."
Jassymade relatively similar statementsin the Bloomberg interview, saying "we happen to think they're better off without a union."
Per labor laws, employers must follow the TIPS rule: They cannot threaten, interrogate, promise or surveil as it relates to unionization. However, employers do retain the right to express opinions about a union.
According toBloomberg, a representative of NLRB in Seattle said Jassy was "interfering with, restraining and coercing employees" in the text of the complaint.
The complaint requests the company respond by November 8 or opt to appear in front of an administrative law judge. Amazon told Bloomberg the complaint is "completely without merit."
An attorney for the Amazon Labor Union praised the decision and told thePostthat the company was being "held accountable."
