Amazon and Union at Odds Over Firing of Staten Island Warehouse Worker

Under federal labor law, employees have the right to take part in organizing activities and are generally entitled to complain publicly about their working conditions. The labor board’s regional office will investigate Mr. Long’s allegation, and the agency’s general counsel could bring a complaint against Amazon if the case is found to have merit.

Several labor lawyers said that winning or favorably settling a case like Mr. Long’s, something that would probably entail his reinstatement with back pay, was critical for a union in the early phases of an organizing campaign because it would put other workers at ease about coming forward.

“Firing people silences other people,” said Molly Elkin, a labor lawyer at Woodley McGillivary. “It becomes difficult to organize. But if the employee is successful getting his job back, you’re back at square one. It’s very, very important.”

Hanan Kolko, a labor lawyer at Cohen, Weiss Simon, said that Mr. Long’s case would hinge partly on whether Amazon was aware of his public comments and his participation in union activities when it fired him. Mr. Kolko said the labor board would also have to consider whether the safety issue was a pretext for dismissal.

Perhaps most important, Mr. Kolko said, was determining whether the company had treated other workers similarly for comparable safety violations. Mr. Long said that some of his fellow workers had not suffered serious consequences for returning an item to a pod.

The Amazon spokeswoman said that the infraction was serious and grounds for dismissal, and that if other workers went unpunished in such cases, it might only mean the violation had not been noticed. She said that the company had offered Mr. Long a chance to appeal his firing to a panel of workers and managers, but that he had declined. Mr. Long said he had not known he had that option.

Mr. Kolko said evidence of company hostility toward unions could bolster Mr. Long’s case. Amazon has distributed a video to managers at its Whole Foods stores on how to defuse union organizing efforts, but lawyers differed on whether that could be cited as evidence.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/business/economy/amazon-warehouse-labor.html?partner=rss&emc=rss