Amazon is facing legal action in federal court from the National Labor Relations Board. The watchdog has asked a judge to issue an injunction forcing Amazon to give union activist Gerald Bryson his job back. Amazon fired Bryson in April 2020, in what the NLRB says is a clear case of Amazon retaliation against him for protesting unsafe working conditions at its JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York.
According to the NLRB, the section 10(j) injunction it is pursuing is intended to temporarily remedy a situation where litigation could take too long to resolve an alleged problem. At the same time, Bryson fought for a return to work for almost two years, according to The New York Times. The NLRB petition (read in full below) argues that other employees may be afraid to speak out if Bryson is not reinstated, as Bryson’s firing is seen as a message from Amazon to its employees. This is especially true now that warehouse workers at JFK8 are voting to unionize starting next Friday, March 25th.
In a statement emailed to The Verge, NLRB Regional Director Cathy Drew King said:
We are seeking an injunction in the district court to immediately reinstate an employee who was wrongfully terminated by Amazon for exercising its Section 7 rights. We are also asking the court to schedule a mandatory JFK8 meeting with all employees where Amazon reads an employee rights notice under the National labor relations law. No matter how big the employer, it’s important for workers to know their rights – especially during union elections – and for the NLRB to stand up for them loudly.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“This is not a lawsuit when someone is suing for me, this is my life”
For Bryson, the process was frustrating. Speaking to The Verge, he told The Verge that the systems to fight large corporations like Amazon are outdated and need to be overhauled – “these places are made for little people to fight, but we can’t. It’s like we’re told, “Hey, here’s the boxing ring, but you won’t get gloves.” He also said he was disappointed that Amazon was settling other cases filed by employees while his case dragged on.
“It’s not a court case when someone is suing for me; this is my life,” he said, talking about his struggles with not having a job as a single father. Despite this disappointment, Bryson says he is “fighting to the end. And hoping to make a difference for other people” who work at Amazon.
Bryson says he is one of the leaders of the Amazon union, the organization that is leading unionization efforts at the JFK8 warehouse where Bryson used to work. ALU is also involved with another Amazon Staten Island facility, LDJ5, where organizers have received the go-ahead to continue unionization efforts. The process of determining the details of the elections is ongoing. The union is led by Christian Smalls, another worker fired from Amazon.
According to The New York Times, Amazon said it fired Bryson after he got into a heated altercation with another warehouse employee during a protest in what the company said was a clear case of bullying and intimidation.
Bryson says the company has a zero tolerance for fighting policy, meaning that if two employees are fighting, her policy is to fire them both. He also denies starting a dispute and says he presented video evidence to the court to prove it.
According to the NLRB petition, Bryson was “the public face of the organizing movement to improve COVID-19 health and safety practices at the JFK8 facility” before Amazon fired him. The company has faced harsh criticism from workers for its handling of the pandemic at JFK8 and similar facilities, and last year the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit alleging the company failed to protect its workers from COVID.
Amazon has faced other lawsuits from the NLRB about its actions at its Staten Island facilities during the unionization effort. In a complaint published earlier this year, the watchdog accused the company of “threats, surveillance and interrogation” of employees. The complaint alleged that warehouse security personnel had confiscated union materials from the organizers, the company called the organizers “thugs” and promised to resolve the employees’ problems themselves if they abandoned unionization efforts.
In December, NLRB reached an agreement with Amazon that requires the company to notify workers of their organizing rights through email, in-app and website messages, and physical signage. While these notices were a step forward, the general meeting that the NLRB proposes (which would also include the publication of written notices) would likely have received significantly more employee attention. In the agreement, Amazon also allowed employees to arrange to work on company premises after business hours, which they were reportedly not allowed to do before.