Amazon is cracking down on union organizing, workers say

More than a year and a half after Amazon workers on Staten Island voted to form the company’s first union in the United States, the company appears to be taking a tougher stance toward labor organizing, disciplining workers and even firing someone who had been deeply involved in the union campaign.

The disciplinary action comes as union organizers appear to be gaining ground at a major Amazon air hub in Kentucky, where they say they have collected union authorization cards from at least a quarter of hourly workers. Employees generally must show at least 30 percent support for union elections to occur.

In disciplining workers, Amazon has raised questions about the extent to which they are free to approach coworkers to convince them to join a union, a federally protected right. The National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel has said Amazon is breaking the law with a policy that regulates off-duty workers’ access to its facilities, which Amazon cited in its recent layoff. The board is seeking to overturn the policy in an upcoming lawsuit.

Lisa Levandowski, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the recent disciplinary actions were strictly in response to rule violations, not union organizing. “Employees have the choice to join a union or not,” she says.

The company’s off-duty access rule is “a lawful, common-sense policy,” she said, “and we look forward to defending our position.”

The fired employee, Connor Spence, was a founder of the Amazon Labor Union, which won last year’s election in Staten Island. After a split within the union leadership, Mr. Spence to form a separate group that tried to pressure the company to negotiate a contract at the warehouse, known as JFK8.

The company has yet to begin negotiating with JFK8 workers and is appealing last year’s union victory.

In October, Mr. Spence’s group led a strike of several dozen workers to push for higher wages and an end to what they say is discrimination against pregnant workers, whom Amazon says it refuses to accommodate with less strenuous tasks.

Mr. Spence was suspended a few weeks later for violating the company’s off-duty access policy, which prohibits employees from being in Amazon buildings or outdoor work areas when not on duty.

Mr. Spence said he was on the ground off the clock to build support for the October strike and to plan a future strike, and that these organizing efforts were protected by federal labor law. He filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the company of unfair labor practices.

On Nov. 29, while still serving his suspension, Mr. Spence was fired for violating the policy in October, according to a document provided to him by the company.

Mr. Spence has also been involved in organizing the Kentucky Air Force Base, the nation’s largest air facility, and his resignation came shortly after he visited the site to help build support for a union.

Ms. Levandowski said that Mr. Spence was fired “after multiple, documented warnings and violations” of company policy and that the termination “has nothing to do with whether Mr. Spence supports any particular cause or group.”

She said the company’s accommodations policy for pregnant employees “meets or exceeds state and federal laws.” Accommodations may include light duties such as building boxes.

Other workers involved in unionization at the air hub say Amazon has targeted them with disciplinary action in recent weeks.

For months, hub workers set up one or more tables at one of two entrances, from which organizers distributed union materials and information about working conditions. Three air hub employees who often sit at the tables said supervisors largely left them alone during this period.

But on Nov. 7, workers said, managers began checking workers’ badges more than once an hour. The site’s general manager, Karthik Bagavathi Pandian, came out twice that day, they said.

According to the employees and videos they shared, managers threatened to discipline them if they did not remove their tables and an easel with a poster board, citing security concerns related to building access.

According to the three workers, visits from managers continued the next day. On the third day, they said, about 20 workers came to Mr Bagavathi Pandian’s office to protest what they said was harassment and a violation of their labor rights.

That same week, HR officials began questioning workers involved in the unionization effort about their presence at the air hub entrance, according to the workers and a recording they provided. Beginning about a week before Thanksgiving, more than a dozen of these employees received “final written warnings” citing their refusal to remove the tables when management told them to do so.

Ms. Levandowski, the Amazon spokeswoman, said workers had rejected at least 10 requests to move their tables and that “we take appropriate action when the policy is persistently ignored.”

The question of when and where Amazon workers can communicate with co-workers has become a major question among the company’s unionization effort.

For years, Amazon had a policy that prohibited employees from lingering in non-work areas such as break rooms before or after their shifts, making it difficult for employees to talk to coworkers about joining a union.

In December 2021, the company reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board that allowed its employees to remain in these areas without a time limit.

But the settlement with the labor board was temporary. In June 2022, a few months after the union victory in Staten Island, Amazon resumed banning off-duty workers from buildings and outdoor workplaces, according to a consolidated National Labor Relations Board complaint about several Amazon warehouses in several states.

The union claims Amazon rolled back the restrictions because its lax approach allowed workers to win elections in Staten Island. “In the break rooms you can talk to hundreds of people every day,” said Cassio Mendoza, a former employee who was involved in the union campaign there, shortly after the election. By contrast, he said, an organizer might have to knock on 50 doors to have a conversation with one or two employees outside of work.

In the consolidated complaint, NLRB general counsel called the current policy unlawful and is seeking to force the company to rescind it.

A judge will consider Amazon’s policy in a trial likely to begin next year unless Amazon settles the case beforehand.

Meanwhile, the policy appears to have played a role in some of Amazon’s recent actions toward union supporters. The company cited the off-duty access policy in firing Mr. Spence on Staten Island and in meetings with employees in Kentucky about a meeting they held near the general manager’s office.

Three Amazon workers at the Kentucky Air Force base said Amazon now appears to be cracking down as their organizing campaign made progress in the fall. They said they had collected union authorization cards from more than 1,000 of the hub’s approximately 4,000 employees.

“We have been more open about the progress and changes of our campaign over the past month,” said Griffin Ritze, one of the Kentucky workers involved in the organizing campaign. “I think they feel like we have more momentum than ever before.”