Last month, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finally made a decision in the series of cases filed against Amazon by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) in 2021 and 2022. At the heart of these cases was Amazon’s use of repressive captive audience meetings aimed at coercing workers against the later successful unionization campaign at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, NY.
In its decision, the NLRB ruled that going forward companies are no longer able to use the captive audience meeting to force workers to listen to their anti-union diatribes used to convince workers that the bosses “have their best interests at heart”. Unfortunately, this ruling does not go far enough as it still allows so-called voluntary meetings, “so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept.”
Given the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s overruling of the 1984 Chevron Decision earlier this year this is likely to provide cover for the bosses to continue this practice with little recourse. The striking down of the Chevron Decision has limited the ability of federal agencies to interpret the laws they are tasked to enforce.
Labor United Educational League stands in solidarity with all worker-organizers who take up the mantel to challenge monopolies such as Amazon. We cannot solely rely on NLRB administrative law to protect us. Only a mass, class-oriented fight can defeat the monopolists.
In solidarity,
Labor United Educational League
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