NEWS & COMMENTARY November 20, 2022

[Omaha Steve]

https://onlabor.org/november-20-2022/

By Swap Agrawal
Swap Agrawal is a student at Harvard Law School.

In this weekend’s news and commentary, a federal district judge ruled that Amazon must cease and desist from retaliating against employees for union organizing but denied the NLRB’s request for an injunction to reinstate a fired organizer; over 100 employees across workplaces met in Columbia, SC to launch the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW); and NLRB leaders sent a letter to Congress saying that the agency will be forced to furlough employees absent additional funding.

On November 18, US district judge Diane Gujurati of the Eastern District of New York ruled that Amazon must cease and desist from retaliating against employees for union organizing and required Amazon to distribute and read the order to employees at the Staten Island warehouse that voted to unionize with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) in April 2022. However, Judge Gujurati also denied the NLRB’s request for an injunction to reinstate Gerald Bryson, a key ALU organizer who helped jumpstart the union’s organizing effort at JFK8.

Bryson was a warehouse picker at Amazon who had been in unions at previous job. On March 30, 2020, he led a protest against the lack of masks and other COVID-19 safety precautions at JFK8, the Staten Island warehouse. Bryson, along with ALU President Chris Smalls and Vice President Derrick Palmer, interrupted a manager’s meeting to advocate for pandemic protections and led a worker walkout of the facility. Bryson participated in two more demonstrations over pandemic safety before he was suspended and then terminated in April 2022.

Bryson was allegedly fired for “bullying a coworker” during a protest, but the NLRB argues that the coworker began the dispute and used profanities including telling Bryson to “go back to the Bronx.” Although Amazon does not have to rehire Bryson, Judge Gujurati said there was “reasonable cause to believe” that Amazon committed an unfair labor practice by discharging him. Separately, NLRB agency judge Benjamin Green ruled in April 2022 that Amazon must offer to reinstate Bryson, but Amazon is appealing that ruling. Amazon failed “to prove it had an honest, good-faith belief that Bryson engaged in serious misconduct warranting discharge,” Green wrote.

FULL story at link above.