(New York) An adviser to the American agency responsible for labor law (NLRB) recommended, after 24 days of hearings, the rejection of the objections filed by Amazon against the vote which led to the creation, at the beginning of the year , of the first syndicate in one of its warehouses in the United States.
Posted at 7:07 p.m.
Both parties have until September 16 to file any new claims, a spokeswoman for the agency said.
An NLRB official will then decide whether to certify the election results or order a re-vote.
Employees of the JFK8 site, located in the Staten Island district of New York, voted in the majority at the end of March to join the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) organization.
The online retail giant, however, quickly objected, saying in particular that the union had intimidated employees to encourage them to vote “yes”. Amazon also claims that the local NLRB office favored the ALU and facilitated its victory.
The file was relocated to the NLRB office in Phoenix, Arizona (Southwest), where an official deemed that certain objections could be admissible and ordered a hearing.
“After conducting interviews for 24 working days via the Zoom for Government platform and carefully reviewing the evidence and arguments presented by the parties, the manager of this hearing, Lisa Dunn, concluded that the employer’s objections should be rejected in their entirety,” the NLRB said Thursday.
Thursday evening, Amazon said in a statement to AFP “its deep disagreement” with these recommendations and indicates its intention to appeal. The company adds via a spokesperson “not to think that (the results of the election) represent the will of the majority of our teams”.
For an election conducted at another Amazon warehouse in Alabama (South) in the spring of 2021, which ended in a “no” on the arrival of a union, the agency had ordered the organization of a new vote by finding that the e-commerce giant had broken the rules.
Many ballots having been disputed during a second ballot organized in February and March of this year, the result has still not been certified.
As the results of the election at New York warehouse JFK8 also have not been certified, Amazon has still not recognized the union or entered into negotiations.
ALU, which had created the surprise by winning the election at JFK8, had not succeeded a few weeks later in immediately renewing its exploit, 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.