Federal labor regulators have concluded that Amazon’s policy of restricting warehouse access to off-duty employees is illegal, supporting the claim of the union that has represented workers at a Staten Island warehouse since winning the election. there last year.
In a written communication sent to the union Wednesday, an attorney for the Brooklyn region of the National Labor Relations Board, Brent E. Childerhose, said the regional office had determined that the company violated the law by adoption of the access rule last summer in response to union activity, and that it had applied the rule in a discriminatory manner against union supporters.
Amazon Labor Union argues that the access policy makes it difficult for workers to exercise their right to talk to their coworkers about joining or supporting a union.
An Amazon spokeswoman, Mary Kate Paradis, said the company adopted the rule to protect the safety of employees and the building, and that it applied the rule fairly and in a way that “has nothing to do with whether an individual supports a particular cause or group.” Employees continue to have access to non-work areas outside of company buildings, he said.
Parts of the case will go to trial before an administrative law judge unless resolved by Amazon beforehand. The losing party can appeal the judge’s decision to the Washington labor board. A lawyer for the union, Seth Goldstein, said if the labor board prevailed, Amazon may have to reverse the after-hours access policy at warehouses across the country. The labor board did not immediately respond to a question about the potential impact.
The board also said that the company had not illegally bargained with the union. An NLRB regional director certified the result in January, but the company is appealing the result to the Washington labor board.
The Amazon spokeswoman said there would be no point in negotiating changes to the way the company operated on the site while Amazon continued to question the validity of the elections.
Amazon has traditionally prohibited workers from staying inside its warehouses, including break rooms, if they are not within 15 minutes of their shift. But the labor board reached an agreement with the company to relax the policy nationwide in late 2021, when the union campaign at the Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, was gaining momentum.
Union organizers attribute their election victory at JFK8 in part to the ability of off-duty employees to talk to their co-workers and distribute food and union supplies in break rooms. They say the loss of such access last summer, shortly after his victory, made it that much harder to reach workers at the warehouse and try to enlist them in a lobbying campaign to bring Amazon to the bargaining table.
Under the agreement, Amazon was allowed to reinstate a more restrictive policy after a few months, but the labor board maintains that the way it did so was discriminatory and therefore illegal.
