Amazon Settles With Labor Board, Making It Easier For Workers To Organize

Amazon reached a nationwide settlement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) late Wednesday, making it easier for Amazon employees to form a union.

The agreement obligates Amazon to email its warehouse workers of their legal rights to organize, as well as post notices of workers’ rights in multiple visible places throughout its facilities, such as fulfillment centers. Amazon must also inform workers that it can’t legally retaliate against workers for organizing on company property.

“This settlement agreement provides a crucial commitment from Amazon to millions of its workers across the United States that it will not interfere with their right to act collectively to improve their workplace by forming a union or taking other collective action,” Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel for the NLRB, told The Wall Street Journal.

The settlement provides avenues for the NLRB to discipline Amazon should it violate the terms of the agreement. It follows several failed unionization efforts by Amazon workers across the country.

Employees attempting to organize at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, lost a unionization vote in April, later alleging that Amazon threatened workers with termination and loss of healthcare benefits if they unionized. The employees filed charges with the NLRB to re-do the vote.

Workers at several Amazon facilities in Staten Island, New York, also attempted to unionize, but withdrew their petition with the NLRB as they lacked the requisite signatures. The workers announced Thursday they would be re-filing their petition.

Amazon did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.