‘Our voices are only going to get louder’, workers warn tech giant after Atlanta warehouse writes up employees

‘Our voices are only going to get louder’, workers warn tech giant after Atlanta warehouse writes up employees

Amazon has argued the country’s top labor watchdog is violating the constitution as the company fights to dismiss unfair labor practice charges, leaning on a recent conservative US supreme court ruling.

In a filing last month, attorneys representing the technology giant pushed back against a complaint issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after two Georgia workers alleged that they faced retaliation, surveillance and interrogation after exercising their right to organize.

The workers, based at the ATL6 Amazon warehouse on the outskirts of Atlanta, filed charges in 2023. The NLRB’s regional office issued a complaint against Amazon after finding merit in the charges. A court hearing is scheduled for October.

Amazon, which denies the allegations, is seeking to dismiss the complaint on constitutional grounds.

    • worldwidewave@lemmy.world
      21·
      3 months ago

      The punishment for union busting should be further empowerment of the union, not just a fine. The incentives are such that Amazon and Starbucks will never stop fighting their unions, and apparently even the federal government.

      • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 months ago

        Starbucks might. They just got rid of the Union hating CEO. Dunno anything about the new guy other than, he comes from Chipotle, which isn’t promising.

  • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
    322·
    3 months ago

    Voting as a block, the six rightwing justices who wield the supermajority threw out the supreme court’s own 1984 opinion in Chevron USA Inc v Natural Resources Defense Council, which has required the courts to defer to the knowledge of government experts in their reasonable interpretation of ambiguous laws.

    Source

    The NRLB’s complaint against Amazon “should be dismissed because the General Counsel’s interpretation of the Act and requests to the National Labor Relations Board in this case implicates the Major Questions Doctrine and associated principles of non-delegation and therefore violate Article I of the United States Constitution,” Amazon’s attorneys wrote in their response, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian.

    The NLRB complaint “should be dismissed”, they added, because the agency’s procedures “violate Article II of the United States Constitution” by involving “the exercise of significant authority by an Officer of the United States who is improperly insulated from the President’s removal power”.

    We’ll have a king. No politician can save you, even if they wanted to.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    3 months ago

    US: So you didn’t try to bust the unions and make backlash?

    Amazon: no, no we did it, we just disagree that we can’t do it.

    US: Ohh so you have loopholes in the law that says you can’t do that?

    Amazon: Hold my beer

    • snooggumsEnglish
      18·
      3 months ago

      Amazon: Now that homelessness is a crime, and we don’t pay our employees enough to afford a home, we are allowed to have slaves under the 14th amendment.

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        I’m semi-expecting that before I die there will be a push for some sort of “Right to labor law”, which will allow companies to involuntarily force the unemployed into their employment at prison wages (after all, we wouldn’t want the unemployed to give up their dreams, right? So we need to incentivize them to go out and get a real job)

  • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
    12·
    3 months ago

    All these barbones worker protections are a compromise. If we don’t have those, then the alternative is violence.