Amazon (AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy’s past comments have come back to haunt him.
In 2022, when Jassy was speaking to multiple news outlets, he revealed his belief that employees would be “better off” without a union, and that having one can make decision-making in the workplace “slower.”
Now, these comments have returned to bite him as the National Labor Relations Board ruled that his statements violated the National Labor Relations Act by “threatening” employees and ‘interfering” with their rights.
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Andy Jassy’s controversial comments on unions
In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on April 14, 2022, Jassy claimed that unions lack a certain type of empowerment.
“You know, first of all, of course, it’s employees’ choice whether or not they want to join a union,” said Jassy in the interview. “We happen to think they’re better off not doing so for a couple of reasons at least. You know, first, at a place like Amazon that empowers employees, if they see something they can do better for customers or for themselves, they can go meet in a room, decide how [to] change it and change it. That type of empowerment doesn’t happen when you have unions. It’s much more bureaucratic, it’s much slower.”
Also, at The New York Times Dealbook Summit on Nov. 30, 2022, Jassy said that his company prefers not to have employee feedback “filtered.”
Andrew Ross Sorkin speaks with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy during the New York Times DealBook Summit in the Appel Room at the Jazz At Lincoln Center on Nov. 30, 2022 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
“I think it’s nice to be able to have a direct relationship with your manager,” said Jassy in the interview. “We like to hear from all our employees as opposed to having it filtered through one or two voices.”
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Jassy also claimed at the Bloomberg Technology Summit on June 8, 2022, that “it’s much harder” to “have a direct relationship with your manager and to get things done quickly” when you have a union.
The NLRB rules that Jassy’s comments violated the law
After a complaint about Jassy’s comments was filed by the NLRB in October 2022, the board finally ruled on May 1 that Jassy’s comments were “unlawful.” The board claimed that his comments violated the National Labor Relations Act, which is a law that “protects workplace democracy.”
“Jassy made predictions about the consequences of unionization which were unlawful,” reads the ruling. “First, that Jassy misrepresented employees’ rights under the Act by saying that employees would lose their “direct relationship” with managers if they elected a union. Second, if the employees unionized, they would be less empowered, would find it harder to get things done quickly since unions are slower and more bureaucratic, and that employees would be better off without a union.”
Workers sort packages at an Amazon distribution facility in Tepotzotlan, Mexico state, Mexico on Dec. 13, 2023.
The ruling also states that Jassy’s comments “crossed the line from lawful expressions of views, arguments, or opinion, and constituted unlawful threats which exceeded the protection of the First Amendment.”
The NLRB issued Amazon a cease and desist barring the company from making similar comments. The board also encourages Amazon to inform workers of their rights by posting paper notices around its facilities, as well as sending employees electronic notices.
Amazon’s tense past with labor unions
Amazon’s alleged beef with labor unions started in April 2022 when Amazon workers at its JFK8 Fulfillment Center on Staten Island voted to form the first-ever union at the company, the Amazon Labor Union.
The effort was led by Amazon employee Chris Smalls after he led a protest in 2020 claiming that the Staten Island warehouse lacked Covid protections for workers and didn’t pay them a satisfactory wage. Once Amazon executives caught wind of the protest, a leaked memo revealed that Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky allegedly called Smalls “not smart, or articulate.” According to Smalls, this memo is what encouraged him to form a union.
Chris Smalls, a leader of the Amazon Labor Union, leads a march of Starbucks and Amazon workers and their allies to the homes of their CEOs to protest union busting on Labor Day,
Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images
Amazon has been accused by employees of shooting down any other union efforts at its warehouses by allegedly taking disciplinary actions and micromanaging unionization activities. The company even fired a worker at its Kentucky warehouse weeks after he helped to organize a walkout, but Amazon later claimed that his firing had nothing to do with whatever “cause or group” he supports.
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