(New York) A hearing before the American agency responsible for labor law (NLRB) began on Monday following a request by Amazon asking for the cancellation of the creation of the first union in one of its warehouses in the United States on the grounds that the ballot was not “fair and free” in his eyes.
Posted at 5:40 p.m.
The company is calling for the organization of a second ballot.
Employees of the JFK8 site, located in the Staten Island district, voted in majority at the end of March to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) organization.
The online retail giant quickly objected, saying in particular that the union had intimidated employees into voting “yes”.
Amazon also claims that the local NLRB office favored the ALU and facilitated its victory, such as announcing rulings condemning Amazon practices just before the election or failing to conduct the ballot properly.
The file was moved to the NLRB office in Phoenix, where an official deemed certain objections to be admissible and ordered a hearing.
The latter, which takes place by videoconference, must last several days, even weeks.
In an opening statement, an Amazon lawyer, Kurt Larkin, recalled that the NLRB had, following another election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, ordered a second ballot for the installation of a mailbox on the parking lot and the distribution of crests by the company.
“We intend to demonstrate that interventions [du bureau new-yorkais du NLRB] and ALUs were much more obvious and were much more likely to interfere with employee choice than the presence of a mailbox in a parking lot,” he added.
“Amazon’s objections are essentially a sideshow,” countered union attorney Eric Milner.
The group, he argued, “chose to be a sore loser” and “evidence will instead show that employees were scared and felt coerced by Amazon, not ALU.”
The hearing manager will advise on the legitimacy of the objections to the Phoenix office manager, who will make a decision.
As the results of the election have not yet been certified, Amazon has not yet recognized the union or entered into negotiations.
ALU, which had created the surprise by winning the election at JFK8, did not succeed a few weeks later in immediately renewing its feat, the employees of a sorting center located on the other side of the street voting massively against the arrival of the organization on their site.