SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
national labor relations act
'Just Cause' Is a Worthy Cause
Activists in Ithaca, New York are mobilizing for the first city-wide ban on arbitrary firings in the US. Other cities should take note.
Nov 22, 2025
Activists in Ithaca, New York are trying something unique: They’re mobilizing support for an ordinance that would prohibit employers in that small city from firing their employees without just cause. If they succeed, they’ll have enacted the first such city-wide ban on arbitrary firings in the country.
Success in this effort will be a big deal, because in the United States, employment—unless otherwise restricted by law, collective bargaining agreement, or individual employment contract—is considered to be “at will.” This means that in the vast majority of cases, employers are entitled to fire workers at their whim, without warning or explanation.
A 2021 report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) tells us that about half of US workers have been affected by unfair or arbitrary firings at some point in their lives, with devastating consequences for them and their families. Not surprisingly, then, a nationwide survey cited in the report found wide public support for just cause protections, including from 71% of voters in battleground states, with both Democratic and Republican majorities weighing in favorably.
Existing Restrictions on Employers' Right to Fire
Even without new federal, state, or local legislation, employers today face some limits to the at-will doctrine: federal and state laws, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, that bar various sorts of discrimination in the workplace; anti-retaliation statutes, like those included in the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and many other whistleblower-protection statutes; and section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, that prohibits firing for union or other "concerted" activity. All these laws fall short of robustly protecting workers from retaliatory or discriminatory firings, however, largely because the burden is on the employee to prove the employer's illegal motivation—no simple feat—when under the general at-will rule the employer can fire the worker for no reason at all.
In addition to these limited statutory constraints on the at-will doctrine, over the past 50 or so years a number of state common law exceptions to the rule have developed. The most prevalent is the "public policy" exception, under which, in theory at least, employers can't fire workers for reasons that are contrary to public policy. Courts generally interpret the exception narrowly, applying it only to employees who exercise a clear legal right, perform a clear legal duty, or refuse to violate the law, or when the employer engaged in an “outrageous violation of a well-established public policy.”
Well-crafted state and local laws and ordinances, with accessible and effective enforcement mechanisms, have the potential to empower workers in new and game-changing ways, especially as federal protections erode before our eyes.
A second exception is the "implied contract of continuing employment" (at least theoretically available in 41 states and the District of Columbia). It's derived from employee handbooks, policies, and the like, that suggest protection from discharge except if the employee performs poorly, violates company policies, or has to be laid off because of the employer's economic necessity. Employers can generally get around this claim by expressly stating in their materials that the employee is working on an at-will basis, and that its various policies can be revised at any time, at the discretion of the employer.
Lastly, 11 states have read into the common law an "implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing," imposed on employers and employees, to act fairly. While theoretically this should prohibit firings without cause altogether, in actuality courts rarely find it applies, and then only in the most abusive cases. In other words, none of these common law carve outs from at-will employment have been particularly helpful to workers.
The Ithaca Ordinance
Which brings us to Ithaca’s legislative proposal. As the core provision of its current draft version (embedded at the Ithaca Just Cause website), the ordinance would prohibit discharge of an employee who has completed their (maximum 90-day) probationary period, for any reason other than just cause or a bona fide economic reason. In considering whether the just cause standard has been satisfied, the fact finder is to consider, among other things, whether the employer trained the worker on its performance requirements and bases for discipline, and whether the employer’s policy, rule, practice, or performance standard, including its use of progressive discipline, was reasonable and applied consistently.
Also, except in cases of egregious misconduct, the employer has to specifically notify the worker of what rules they violated or requirements they fell short of, and must utilize progressive discipline prior to firing. Similar notice of reasons is required before discharging a worker on account of bona fide economic necessity. Significantly, if an employee termination is to be upheld, the burden is on the employer to satisfy these requirements by a preponderance of the evidence.
The proposed legislation also adds a "Worker Rights" section to the City of Ithaca Municipal Code, and establishes a commission that would adjudicate complaints of violation. Complaints of violation can also be filed in court.
Retaliation against workers who exercise any of the rights granted by the legislation is expressly prohibited, and use of electronic surveillance as a tool for determining employee performance is restricted. Remedies for employees vary depending on the violation, and include back pay and damages, rescission of discipline and reinstatement, penalties, severance pay, injunctive relief, and attorneys’ fees.
Other Just Cause Efforts
The proposed ordinance echoes the recommendations laid out in these NELP and Roosevelt Institute reports. Published in 2021, both make the case for why this kind of municipal ordinance, or more potently, a comparable state law (or, as an even more radical aspiration, federal legislation, as promoted by Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders) is justified and overdue for all workers—with NELP focusing particularly on the disproportionate impact of at-will employment on people of color and immigrant workers, who face higher rates of wage theft, discrimination, and retaliation for asserting their rights than the employee population at large.
It should come as no surprise, but it's still shameful, that this country lags far behind many other nations—Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and most of the European Union, to name a few—in providing just-cause protections against arbitrary and unfair firings. Which is why what the Ithaca coalition is doing is really worth noticing. But it's not the first city to take this on: Philadelphia led the (notably small) pack when, in 2019, its city council enacted a just cause termination ordinance for the city's approximately 1,000 parking lot attendants. New York City was next, enacting a comparable ordinance protecting its fast food workers in 2021. Also in New York City, a diverse coalition of unions, advocacy organizations, and high road employers are pressing for passage of a Secure Jobs Act covering all employees who work in the city. With its newly elected democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani, it just might succeed.
The US territories of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have just cause laws. In Illinois, a Secure Jobs Act, pressed by Raise the Floor Alliance and a broad array of allies, was introduced in the state legislature in 2021, but has yet to be enacted. In what might come as a surprise, Montana is the only state in the US to have enacted just cause legislation, and it's been on the books for decades. While not nearly as progressive as the Ithaca, New York City, and Illinois models, it is unique in prohibiting, state-wide, firings without good cause.
Will Just Cause Laws Hamper Unionization Efforts?
Some may be concerned that just cause legislation could undercut unions' ability to successfully organize, since that's a key benefit they can provide in collective bargaining agreements. But there are a number of arguments that cut the other way—including that if firing without good cause is made illegal and is readily enforceable, it creates a more effective impediment to employers' efforts to get rid of pro-union activists than the weak and slow remedies the National Labor Relations Act has to offer. And, just cause for all workers would provide a floor, not a ceiling, for union negotiations for even better protections against improper firings at unionized workplaces.
Parting Thoughts
Worker rights advocates should watch Ithaca Just Cause's initiative with keen interest. It also should give food for thought—and inspiration—for those of us who live in other cities and states. It’s clear that just cause protections are popular with workers across party lines. Well-crafted state and local laws and ordinances, with accessible and effective enforcement mechanisms, have the potential to empower workers in new and game-changing ways, especially as federal protections erode before our eyes. For those of us in locales where this might be possible, maybe it's time to give it a try.
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Labor Board Bans Captive Audience Meetings to Ensure 'Truly Free' Worker Choice
"Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights," said the chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Nov 13, 2024
In a decision that advocates say will likely be reversed during the second administration of Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ruled that employers cannot force workers to attend anti-union speeches.
The NLRB's 3-1 decision in Amazon.com Services, LLC means that workers will no longer have to take part in so-called "captive audience meetings," which employers often use as a union-busting tool and a form of coercion. The agency explained that such meetings violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act "because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees."
"However, the board made clear that an employer may lawfully hold meetings with workers to express its views on unionization so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept," the NLRB added.
NLRB Chairperson Lauren McFerran, a Democrat, said in a statement that "ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National Labor Relations Act."
"Captive audience meetings—which give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or discharge—undermine this important goal," McFerran added. "Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights under the act, while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner."
In April 2022, the NLRB's general counsel office issued a memo asserting that captive audience meetings are illegal. At least 11 states have banned such meetings. Other states are in various stages of considering or enacting bans or restrictions on them.
Workers' rights advocates hailed Wednesday's decision, although labor journalist Hamilton Nolan quipped on social media that employees should "enjoy this brief shining period before the Trump NLRB reverses this decision."
However, More Perfect Union producer Jordan Zakarin argued that Democrats can protect this "monumental win for labor" for "the next few years" if "they finally confirm" President Joe Biden's nomination of Joshua Ditelberg—a Republican lawyer who has represented companies including Amazon, Airbnb, and UnitedHealth—to fill the fifth NLRB seat.
According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)—a Washington, D.C.-based, pro-union think tank—U.S. employers spend an estimated $433 million per year on union-busting consultants.
"This reality makes it harder for workers to fight for their collective bargaining rights because they do not know the extent of their companies' investments in union-busting, a figure that could empower them at the negotiating table when employers claim they can't afford to increase pay and benefits," EPI said last year.
Keep ReadingShow Less
UAW Hits Trump, Musk With Federal Labor Charges Over Effort to 'Intimidate Workers'
"When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean," said United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain.
Aug 13, 2024
The United Auto Workers announced Tuesday that it filed federal labor charges against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk after the former president heaped praise on the world's richest man for firing striking workers.
During a rambling and lie-filled conversation on X—the social media platform owned by Musk—Trump hailed the Tesla CEO as "the greatest cutter."
"I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: 'You want to quit?' They go on strike—I won't mention the name of the company—but they go on strike," Trump said as Musk—who is backing the GOP nominee—laughed. "And you say: 'That's okay, you're all gone.'"
The UAW argued Tuesday that Trump and Musk's remarks during the conversation, which was viewed live by more than a million people, amounted to "illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes."
"Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It's disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns."
"Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act," the union said.
Listen to Trump's comments:
Trump praises billionaire Elon Musk for firing workers who were striking for better pay and working conditions pic.twitter.com/4ZGWHV49Mw
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 13, 2024
Shawn Fain, the UAW's president, said in a statement Tuesday that "when we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean."
"When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean," Fain added. "Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a super PAC to get him elected. Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It's disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns."
Shortly after taking over the social media platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022, Musk terminated unionized custodial workers at the company's San Francisco headquarters on the same day that they launched an Unfair Labor Practice strike. Months later, Musk-led Tesla fired dozens of workers at its Buffalo, New York factory just a day after they announced plans to unionize.
Musk, like Trump, has a long history of hostility toward labor unions, both in the U.S. and overseas—a similarity that the pair bonded over during the X conversation Monday night.
"Scab recognize scab," the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the U.S., wrote on X in response to Trump's remarks on striking workers.
Chris Brooks, a strategist for Fain, added that "when the mighty UAW says DONALD TRUMP IS A SCAB, this is exactly what we mean."
"Listen to Trump in his own words, laughing with anti-union billionaire Elon Musk about how they both support firing workers who exercise their right to strike," Brooks added.
Both the AFL-CIO and the UAW have endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, warning that a second Trump term would "would decimate workers' ability to organize; gut health and safety protections; attack civil, labor, and consumer rights; eviscerate retirement security; and undermine our ability to hold the wealthy and corporations accountable."
Warren Gunnels, staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote during the Trump-Musk conversation that "the problem is not the dude from Guatemala picking tomatoes for starvation wages," rejecting the pair's demonization of immigrants.
"The problem is billionaires like Trump and Musk who exploit workers, rip off the American people, and make a fortune by being conmen," Gunnels added. "The problem is corporate greed, boss. Trump and Musk are scabs."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Bezos and Musk Wage Retrograde War on Unions
The modern-day robber barons want the Supreme Court to return America to a time before workers had the right to form unions.
Feb 27, 2024
I never believed Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person in America (worth an estimated $114 billion), and Elon Musk, the richest (at $180 billion), would brazenly use their wealth and power to try to eliminate labor unions and thereby suppress the wages of American workers even further.
In my naivete, I assumed they wouldn’t reveal themselves as no better (and in many ways worse) than the robber barons of the first Gilded Age, whose riches were unrivaled and who fought with all their might against labor unions.
It’s not that Bezos’ Amazon has exactly hidden its objective. The company has fought off every attempt to organize its workers—holding anti-union meetings, targeting union supporters, challenging union elections, and firing workers who tried to organize.
But in a legal filing last Thursday, Amazon went even further. It argued that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which supervises and enforces labor law, is unconstitutional because it mixes judicial and executive functions.
Evidently, it’s not enough for Bezos and Musk to amass more wealth than any two people on the planet.
Jeff Bezos’s view (I’m assuming Amazon’s filing reflects his view) is the same as that of retrograde Elon Musk, whose SpaceX made an almost identical argument in a lawsuit last month.
The NLRB is the agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act—the 1935 Act that legitimized labor unions.
Bezos and Musk’s argument was rejected by the Supreme Court 86 years ago in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.
In that case, the NLRB found that the giant steel corporation Jones & Laughlin had violated the National Labor Relations Act by firing workers for trying to organize a union. The board ordered the corporation to reinstate them, pay them back wages, and refrain from any further actions to discourage workers from exercising their rights under the act.
In an opinion by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Supreme Court upheld the NLRB’s order, holding that Congress acted within its constitutional authority to pass the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, including the National Labor Relations Board to enforce it.
But modern-day robber barons Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk want the Supreme Court to reverse its 1937 ruling and return America to a time before workers had the right to form unions.
Both of these tycoons hate unions. Both have illegally fired workers for trying to organize them. Bezos’s Amazon—having had one of its warehouses vote to unionize—is actively patrolling its workplaces against any signs of unionizing activity. Musk’s Tesla is the target of organizing efforts by the UAW and a number of European unions.
Evidently, it’s not enough for Bezos and Musk to amass more wealth than any two people on the planet. Not enough for them to monopolize their respective industries (Amazon is now being sued by the Federal Trade Commission, Musk’s SpaceX and his X platform are also monopolies). Not enough for them to fight their workers who want better pay and safer working conditions. Not enough for them to wage a war on the freedom of workers to join labor unions.
No, they want even more wealth and covet even more of the power—and don’t want to share any of it with their workers, or any other American workers.
Evidently, they believe that today’s Supreme Court—packed with right-wing justices who have few scruples about reversing long-held judicial precedents or even taking money from wealthy people with a financial interest in how they rule—will find their argument compelling.
I hope they’re wrong.
Keep ReadingShow Less
In 'Direct Attack' on Labor Movement, Amazon Backs Claim NLRB Is Unconstitutional
"So now capital, unable to hold back labor any longer, is arguing that the NLRB's very existence is unconstitutional," said one law professor.
Feb 16, 2024
Amid a recent surge in unionization and other workers' rights victories, wealthy U.S. corporations have fired union organizers, surveilled employees as they voted on forming a collective bargaining unit, and closed store locations to penalize labor leaders—but a court filing by Amazon on Thursday suggested a new tactic as the e-commerce giant seeks to dismantle the federal agency tasked with protecting employees.
Fighting accusations from prosecutors at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that Amazon illegally retaliated against warehouse workers who unionized, the company submitted a legal filing arguing that the board itself is unconstitutional.
Amazon claimed it did not break the law by limiting workers' access to the warehouse, which the NLRB said last year was a transparent effort to quash union activity. In its filing, the company also claimed "the structure of the NLRB violates the separation of powers" by "impeding the executive power provided for in Article II of the United States Constitution."
The company is the third corporation to make such a claim in recent weeks.
In January, a lawyer for grocery chain Trader Joe's argued in an NLRB hearing over union-busting charges that the board, which was created nearly 90 years ago under the New Deal, is "unconstitutional"—"including but not limited to the structure and organization of the National Labor Relations Board and the agency's administrative law judges."
That claim came weeks after astronautics company SpaceX, owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk—currently the second-richest person on Earth—claimed the NLRB's enforcement proceedings violate the company's right to a jury trial.
Amazon echoed that claim on Thursday.
Seth Goldstein, an attorney for Trader Joe's United, which sued the grocer over illegal retaliation, said last month that the company's argument suggested that workers "don't have the right to organize at all."
"This is really dangerous," Goldstein told HuffPost. "Are we really going back to 1920?"
On Thursday, he called Amazon's decision to launch its own anti-NLRB legal argument "a direct attack on the American labor movement and workers' rights."
Amazon's filing follows more than 250 NLRB complaints against its labor practices in recent years. In 2022, employees at the company's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York won what was called a "David versus Goliath" victory, defeating Amazon's multimillion-dollar anti-union effort by voting to form the Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
"So now capital, unable to hold back labor any longer, is arguing that the NLRB's very existence is unconstitutional," said Cornell Law School professor Robert Hockett.
Former New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse pointed out that the new anti-union efforts by Amazon and SpaceX are being led by two of the richest men in the world—Musk and Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos.
"Billionaires," said Christian Smalls, president of ALU and fired Amazon worker, "they gotta go!"
Corporate interests have previously worked to dismantle regulatory agencies tasked with protecting working Americans, with a trade association representing payday lenders taking its case against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the U.S. Supreme Court last year. The group has argued the CFPB's funding structure through the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional.
Pawel Popiel, a researcher at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, called Amazon's filing an "incredibly troubling lobbying effort."
Keep ReadingShow Less
NLRB Rolls Back Trump-Era Policies That Dragged Out Union Elections
"In reversing this rule, the NLRB is leveling the playing field and helping workers," said one pro-labor group.
Aug 24, 2023
Workers who wish to vote on forming a bargaining unit will no longer be held up by rules that were put in place in 2019 by Republican members of the National Labor Relations Board under the Trump administration, as the panel passed a regulation on Thursday that the board chair said represented a return to a "basic principle" of labor protections.
The NLRB's new regulation restores protections put in place in 2014, which ensured union elections would be held swiftly.
Under the new rule, the board said it "will meaningfully reduce the time it takes to get from petition to [union] election in contested elections and will expedite the resolution of any post-election litigation."
The changes include:
- Allowing pre-election hearings to begin more quickly and making them more efficient;
- Distributing election information to employees more quickly; and
- Requiring NLRB regional directors to hold elections at "the earliest date practicable," eliminating a 20-day waiting period.
"It is a basic principle of the National Labor Relations Act that representation cases should be resolved quickly and fairly," said Chairman Lauren McFerran, who criticized her Republican colleagues in 2019 for imposing new rules to delay union voting. "By removing unnecessary delays from the election process, the new rule supports these important goals, and allows workers to more effectively exercise their fundamental rights."
Like the policies announced Thursday, the 2019 changes were made via a direct final rule, without a public comment period. The Republicans on the NLRB at the time extended deadlines related to union elections and added steps to the process.
"Slowing union elections gave companies more time to union-bust under [former Republican President Donald] Trump," said the pro-labor media organization More Perfect Union.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Amazon Fires Alabama Union Leader Who 'Lit the Spark of the Current Rise of Labor Activism'
"Your termination of my employment will not stifle workers' organizing, for when you fire leaders, it only brings more people ignited into the movement," said Jennifer Bates.
Jun 02, 2023
Amazon on Friday fired Jennifer Bates, a warehouse worker and lead spokesperson of the unionization campaign in Bessemer, Alabama, without cause.
The Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) described Bates as the "woman who lit the spark of the current rise of labor activism." Her termination comes as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continues to investigate RWDSU's claims that Amazon violated federal labor law in order to vanquish a union drive broadly supported by local residents.
According to RWDSU, the firing of Bates also comes amid a "monthslong worker's compensation nightmare. Bates continues to suffer from crippling injuries received while working at Amazon, which she spoke out about during the unionization effort, and for which has lengthy documentation." The union added that "Bates hit three years of service this May, an ominous number for Amazon workers whose pay scales top out after three years."
"Amazon terminated one of the most public pro-union worker leaders we've seen in a generation over an alleged paperwork issue."
"I went to work for Amazon because I believed in the future world of work, but at Amazon there is no future for workers like me," Bates said in a statement. "I have tirelessly worked for Amazon in Bessemer, Alabama since it opened. Everything hurts and it's permanently changed my life forever, but I stayed because I believe Amazon can be better, and I believe with a union we can build a brighter future for workers across the company."
"I've given my back to Amazon these past three years. I've given my arms and shoulders to Amazon these past three years. And I've given every fiber of my soul into organizing Amazon these past three years," said Bates. "For them to treat me like this is unfathomable."
"But let me be clear, Amazon, your termination of my employment will not stifle workers' organizing, for when you fire leaders, it only brings more people ignited into the movement," she stressed. "We are a movement, we will not be stopped, and I know my union, recognized or not by you, has my back. We will fight this, I will not be silenced, we will not be stopped."
RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum lamented that "Amazon terminated one of the most public pro-union worker leaders we've seen in a generation over an alleged paperwork issue, for which there is ample documentation."
The issue "can and should be easily resolved by a human," said Appelbaum. "Instead, Jennifer Bates is being subjected to termination by AI due to a glitch in the company's own software."
"Outrageously, Jennifer's is just one example of horror stories burdening thousands of Amazon workers every day," Appelbaum continued. "Workers suffer from life-altering injuries through their work at Amazon, including repetitive motion injuries and 911 emergencies, which send workers to the hospital regularly, some never to return again. Continually nameless faceless HR is either nowhere to be found or excessively difficult to track down."
"Amazon spared no expense in its union-busting throughout the Bessemer campaign, and today is just another in a litany of examples of how this company will stop at nothing to stifle workers' efforts to unionize," the union leader noted. "Amazon blatantly broke the law throughout the campaign, knowing that any potential penalty would be insignificant. Amazon's goal was to prevent—by any means—its employees from having a collective voice through a union in Bessemer."
"Labor law reform is critical if workers are to find any hope," he added. "Amazon's behavior must not be tolerated."
"Amazon spared no expense in its union-busting throughout the Bessemer campaign, and today is just another in a litany of examples of how this company will stop at nothing to stifle workers' efforts to unionize."
In the spring of 2021, RWDSU came up short during its initial organizing drive at Amazon's BHM1 warehouse in Bessemer—the first union election at one of the e-commerce giant's facilities in United States history.
Afterward, the union filed 23 complaints with the NLRB, accusing Amazon of illegally threatening employees with loss of pay and benefits, installing and surveilling an unlawful ballot collection box, and expelling pro-union workers from captive audience meetings during which management argued against collective bargaining.
The NLRB eventually threw out the results of the first election and supervised a new vote in the spring of 2022. The results of the second election were inconclusive. Although there were 118 more votes against unionization than for it, the final outcome hinges on how the director of the NLRB's Region 10 office decides to count 416 challenged ballots.
Following last year's contested vote, RWDSU lodged 21 objections to Amazon's conduct during the election with the NLRB, accusing the company of yet again interfering with the rights of its employees to organize for better conditions without fear of retaliation.
"Workers at Amazon have endured an insanely and needlessly long and aggressive fight to unionize their workplace; with Amazon doing everything it can to spread misinformation and deceive workers," Appelbaum said Friday. "Today’s news is shockingly just another case of Amazon's misconduct in a growing mountain of [unfair labor practices], objections, and charges against Amazon."
"The company violated the law in the first election and did so again in the re-run election, and now is firing union leaders in the facility to all but extinguish any embers of union support in the facility," said Appelbaum.
"We will continue to hold Amazon accountable and ensure workers' voices are heard," the union leader emphasized. "Amazon's behavior must not go unchallenged, and workers in Bessemer, Alabama must have their rights protected under the law. We urge the NLRB to carefully review Jennifer's case, when it's filed, and the countless other issues at hand to ensure no company, not even with the bottomless pockets of Amazon, is allowed to act above the law."
In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis said that company records "indicate that Ms. Bates failed to show up to work for a period of time and didn't respond or provide documentation to excuse her absences." She added that "Ms. Bates has the opportunity to appeal the decision."
RWDSU said that Bates has tried multiple times "to provide the necessary paperwork" but "has yet to hear from the company about her appeal."
Note: This piece has been updated with comment from Amazon.
Keep ReadingShow Less
NLRB Says Amazon Illegally Union-Busted by Limiting Worker Access to Warehouses
"People should be outraged that Amazon feels that the law doesn't apply to them," said a lawyer for the Amazon Labor Union.
Mar 23, 2023
The Amazon Labor Union celebrated Wednesday as a lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board in Brooklyn determined that Amazon acted illegally when it adopted a rule barring warehouse workers from being present at their workplace when they were not scheduled to work—a transparent effort, the board said, to limit union activity.
The company reached a settlement in 2021 with the NLRB, agreeing to notify workers of their right to form a union and to organize on company property.
Organizers with the ALU say the settlement was crucial in allowing off-duty workers to engage with their colleagues as they prepared to vote on unionizing—a vote that they ultimately won on April 1, 2022 in a result that one labor reporter called a "tremendous upset."
As the union prepared to vote last year, said Christian Smalls, a co-founder of the ALU and former Amazon employee, on Wednesday, "we were allowed to organize in the break room, feed the workers, feed our colleagues, let them know that we're building a culture that's here to represent the workers."
"Unfortunately, after our victory Amazon rolled a policy out that allowed no access to the building, meaning workers cannot report before or afterwards unless they're scheduled for shifts," he added. "We weren't allowed to organize because they were targeting us, retaliating, firing, writing people up."
The new policy, introduced last summer, barred workers from being in the building 15 minutes before or after their scheduled shift. The ALU says it made it more difficult for the union to engage with workers and enlist them to help pressure Amazon to bargain with them.
The company has claimed that it instituted the off-duty access rule only as a security measure and applied the rule fairly.
"The employer violated the [National Labor Relations] Act in implementing its off-duty access rule at the end of June in response to union activity," said the NLRB in a letter to the ALU. "The off-duty access rule has further been applied discriminatorily as relates to the disciplines pursuant to the rule which have been issued for union activity."
The board's announcement that it found merit in the ALU's charges regarding the rule could be "a precursor to the agency issuing a complaint or taking other formal actions," Bloomberg Law reported.
"People should be outraged that Amazon feels that the law doesn't apply to them," Seth Goldstein, an attorney who represents the ALU, told Bloomberg Law.
"Workers can't organize if they don't have access to the break rooms and non-work areas before or after work, and the board recognizes that, and they're going to hold Amazon accountable," Goldstein told Law360.
The NLRB also said Wednesday that Amazon has illegally refused to bargain with the ALU nearly a year after the union won its election. The company is appealing the election outcome to the board, even though it was certified by regional officials earlier this year.
Smalls expressed hope that the NLRB's decision regarding the off-duty access rule will make it easier for Amazon workers to organize across the United States.
"We're letting them know we're going back in the building, we're feeding our coworkers," he said, "not just here at [Staten Island warehouse] JFK8 but all across the nation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
US Strike Activity Surged in 2022 as SCOTUS Workers' Rights Ruling Looms
"The right to strike is a critical source of worker power, but that right could be under further threat from the Supreme Court," warned one expert.
Feb 23, 2023
The number of U.S. workers who staged work stoppages in a wide array of industries in 2022 surged by nearly 50% from the previous year, new federal data shows—but the resolve among employees demanding fair pay after years without a raise, better working conditions, and paid sick leave may be under threat as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs a key labor case.
An analysis by three Economic Policy Institute (EPI) experts—Margaret Poydock, Jennifer Sherer, and Celine McNicholas—of data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that at least 120,600 U.S. workers were involved in major strikes in 2022, up from 80,700 in 2021.
EPI noted that a number of significant strikes went uncounted by the bureau, as the federal government does not track strikes involving fewer than 1,000 people, such as the three-month work stoppage staged by 250 union members at HarperCollins Publishers recently, which successfully secured bonuses and raises.
Between 2021 and 2022, union membership grew by 200,000 people, with 16 million workers represented by collective bargaining units, EPI's report showed. More Americans expressed approval of unions last year than they have in more than 50 years.
"Workers are turning to strikes to fight for better wages and working conditions, as well as union recognition," said Poydock. "This strike activity is occurring despite our broken labor law failing to adequately protect workers' fundamental right to strike."
As EPI noted, the internationally recognized human right to go on strike is guaranteed to most private sector workers in the U.S. under the National Labor Relations Act, but the law does not cover employees in the railway or airline industries, the public sector, agriculture, or in domestic work including home health aides and childcare workers.
Last month the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters—a case that could further weaken American workers' right to stage work stoppages to demand fair treatment from employers.
"Workers will face potential liability for any damages the employer deems to be related to the work stoppage. This would greatly limit workers ability to strike and would be a gross misinterpretation of the NLRA."
The case involves concrete company Glacier Northwest, which filed a lawsuit for damages after its truck drivers in Washington state, who are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 174, went on strike. The company claimed the work stoppage caused concrete to harden in trucks before it could be delivered, leaving Glacier Northwest with lost sales.
"The case centers on the question of whether an employer's suit for damages related to a strike is preempted by the NLRA, which governs the right to strike," Poydock, Sherer, and McNicholas in the EPI report, referring to the National Labor Relations Act. "In the Glacier case, the employer is arguing that, in spite of workers' attempts to protect the employer's property, the union is liable for damages related to the strike. If the Supreme Court is persuaded by this argument, it will upend decades of precedent surrounding the right to strike and leave workers with a significantly diminished ability to strike."
"Workers will face potential liability for any damages the employer deems to be related to the work stoppage. This would greatly limit workers ability to strike and would be a gross misinterpretation of the NLRA," they continued.
EPI said the case offers the latest reason for Congress to ensure that the right to unionize and strike is protected by passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The legislation would prohibit employers from permanently replacing workers who go on strike, eliminate a ban on secondary strikes, and allow intermittent strikes.
The group also called for the passage of the Striking Workers Healthcare Protection Act to prevent companies from retaliating against striking workers by cutting off their health coverage, as well as a number of state-level reforms.
Recent proposals in Massachusetts and Maine would extend the right to strike to public workers, and in Connecticut and Pennsylvania lawmakers have proposed allowing workers to collect unemployment benefits while on the picket line—"promising signs of growing state-level interest in shoring up workers' right to strike," EPI said.
"The right to strike is a critical source of worker power, but that right could be under further threat from the Supreme Court," said Sherer. "We need Congress and state legislatures to step in and strengthen the right to strike by passing the PRO Act and other critical reforms."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy