Amazon Activist's Firing Deemed Illegal by Labor Board Officials

America's National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the federal government that enforces U.S. labor law. And its prosecutors "plan to formally accuse Amazon.com of illegally firing an activist who was trying to unionize its New York warehouses," as well as other violations of the law, reports Bloomberg - unless Amazon settles the case first. New York Focus reports that the fired worker had commuted from a homeless shelter to Amazon's fulfillment center on New York's Staten Island - a facility where Amazon has held mandatory anti-union meetings. But it's not the only place there's been tension between Amazon and union organizers:In March, an NLRB investigation into the firing of Queens Amazon warehouse worker and labor leader Jonathan Bailey found that the company illegally interrogated and threatened him. NBC News reported that eight other workers also said "they had been fired, disciplined or retaliated against for protected activity." A month later, the NLRB found that Amazon had illegally retaliated against Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, who was fired in 2020 for their workplace activism while employed at Amazon's headquarters in Seattle The Amazon Labor Union (founded by current and former Amazon employees) "has filed a petition to hold an election at four of the e-commerce giant's facilities in Staten Island," Bloomberg reported Friday. And an official for the group told Bloomberg it could galvanize support for a union if they could get the fired worker reinstated. "It would be monumental for him to go back to the same building that he was terminated from and speak his truth and let workers know that it's OK to speak out."Amazon has been grappling with an unprecedented wave of activism and organizing in North America, including walkouts over safety concerns in Staten Island and elsewhere, as well as unionization drives in Alabama, Canada and New York.... In December, Amazon reached a settlement with the labor board requiring the company to inform workers nationwide of their legal rights and to let employees organize on its property during their time off.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.