A government official has recommended rejecting an objection by Amazon to the successful union vote at one if its fulfillment centers in New York’s Staten Island.
The hearing officer with the National Labor Relations Board handling Amazon’s objection concluded that the board should overrule the objection and certify the union.
After a hearing carried out over 24 days, the official concluded that Amazon had not proven that the regional NLRB office, the petitioner or third parties engaged in “objectionable conduct affecting the results of the election,” according to an NLRB spokesperson.
Parties have until Sept. 16 to file objections before the presiding regional director considers the hearing officer’s recommendations. Any resulting objection can be appealed to the board.
After a vote to form a union at the fulfillment center (known as JFK8) won by a nearly 11% margin, Amazon filed the objection weeks later, accusing Regional Director Kathy Drew King and other Brooklyn staff of making statements “that call into question the Region’s ‘neutral’ stance” around the election and potentially disenfranchising some workers voting on the union, among other complaints.
In a statement following the recommendation to reject its objection, an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement that the company was still reviewing the decision.
“[W]e strongly disagree with the conclusion and intend to appeal,” the Amazon spokesperson said. “As we showed throughout the hearing with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pages of documents, both the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the outcome of the election and we don’t believe it represents what the majority of our team wants.”
The labor organizers, Amazon Labor Union, said in a statement after receiving the hearing officer’s opinion, “While we are pleased with her findings, the Amazon workers in the ALU understand that this is just the beginning of a much longer fight.”
