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Amazon effort to thwart Alabama union drive suffers early defeat at labor board
Source: Washington Post
Amazon effort to thwart Alabama union drive suffers early defeat at labor board
The National Labor Relations Board rejected Amazon’s bid to delay a hearing on unionization vote by warehouse workers into the next year.
By Jay Greene
12/2/2020, 8:55:13 p.m.
SEATTLE — The National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday rejected Amazon’s bid to delay a hearing on the union drive of Alabama workers into January, as the e-commerce giant signals its willingness to vigorously battle employees trying to organize.
Bessemer warehouse workers notified the NLRB last week that they want to hold an election to create a bargaining unit that would cover 1,500 full-time and part-time workers, represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The agency had scheduled a Dec. 11 hearing to determine, among other items, whether to call a union election.
But Amazon failed to persuade the agency to delay the hearing by at least a month. The union opposed rescheduling the hearing at all. The NLRB decided to push the hearing back a week to Dec. 18 without offering an explanation.
As part of its battle against workers trying to organize, the company retained Morgan Lewis & Bockius, “premier anti-union lawyers,” according to Rebecca Givan, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University. Amazon used Morgan Lewis when it successfully fought off a union representation bid by small group of equipment maintenance and repair technicians at its Middletown, Del., warehouse in 2014.
-snip-
The National Labor Relations Board rejected Amazon’s bid to delay a hearing on unionization vote by warehouse workers into the next year.
By Jay Greene
12/2/2020, 8:55:13 p.m.
SEATTLE — The National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday rejected Amazon’s bid to delay a hearing on the union drive of Alabama workers into January, as the e-commerce giant signals its willingness to vigorously battle employees trying to organize.
Bessemer warehouse workers notified the NLRB last week that they want to hold an election to create a bargaining unit that would cover 1,500 full-time and part-time workers, represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). The agency had scheduled a Dec. 11 hearing to determine, among other items, whether to call a union election.
But Amazon failed to persuade the agency to delay the hearing by at least a month. The union opposed rescheduling the hearing at all. The NLRB decided to push the hearing back a week to Dec. 18 without offering an explanation.
As part of its battle against workers trying to organize, the company retained Morgan Lewis & Bockius, “premier anti-union lawyers,” according to Rebecca Givan, a labor studies professor at Rutgers University. Amazon used Morgan Lewis when it successfully fought off a union representation bid by small group of equipment maintenance and repair technicians at its Middletown, Del., warehouse in 2014.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/02/amazon-union-vote-hearing/