In February 2023, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy despatched an e-mail to the corporate’s workers outlining new return-to-work pointers. Beforehand, particular person groups inside the firm may determine the place workers have been anticipated to work, however Jassy’s e-mail revealed that beginning on Might 1st, 2023, most Amazon workers have been anticipated to work from the workplace at the least three days per week. (Some roles, reminiscent of salespeople and buyer assist, have been exempted.)
In response, hundreds of Amazon workers signed petitions towards the brand new mandate and staged a walkout a number of months later. Regardless of the protests and pushback, in response to a report by Insider, in a gathering in early August 2023, Jassy reaffirmed the corporate’s dedication to workers returning to the workplace for almost all of the week.
The NLRB grievance alleges Amazon “interrogated” workers in regards to the walkout utilizing its inside Chime system. The worker was first placed on a efficiency enchancment plan by Amazon following their organizing efforts for the walkout and later “supplied a severance cost of 9 weeks’ wage if the worker signed a severance settlement and world launch in alternate for his or her resignation.”
In response to the NLRB’s attorneys, all of that was as a result of the worker engaged in organizing, and the retaliation was supposed to discourage “…protected, concerted actions.”
The title of the worker within the NLRB grievance is redacted. Final 12 months, The Seattle Instances profiled one of many walkout organizers, who was — after the walkout — placed on a efficiency enchancment plan that the paper describes as “recognized for being practically not possible to flee.” A element describing how investigators questioned this specific individual over allegedly encouraging different workers “to be offended at Amazon” is talked about each within the grievance and within the article.
The NLRB’s common counsel is searching for a number of completely different types of remediation from Amazon, together with reimbursement for the worker’s “monetary harms and search-for-work and work associated bills,” a letter of apology, and a “Discover to Staff” that should be bodily posted on the firm’s services throughout the nation, distributed electronically, and skim by an Amazon rep at a recorded videoconference. The contents of the “Discover to Staff” was not specified.
Amazon responded to the NLRB’s grievance as we speak, and Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, shared the next assertion with The Verge:
“The information of this example are clear and don’t have anything to do with whether or not this former worker opposed our return-to-office steerage. She constantly underperformed over a interval of practically a 12 months and repeatedly didn’t ship on tasks she was assigned. Regardless of in depth assist and training, the previous worker was unable to enhance her efficiency and selected to go away the corporate.”
If Amazon and the worker don’t settle, a listening to is deliberate with an NLRB Administrative Regulation Decide (ALJ) in Seattle on February 4th, 2025.
