Thread by @MorePerfectUS

This week, the NLRB found Amazon illegally interrogated a worker who organized for safer conditions early in the pandemic at an Amazon warehouse.

It’s the latest in Amazon’s long history of violating the law to keep their workers from organizing unions.
vice.com/en/article/dy8…

Amazon has a union busting formula:

1. Hire union avoidance consultants & former FBI officials
2. Use surveillance technology to identify “threats”
3. Threaten, intimidate or fire pro-union workers
4. Pay fines for breaking the law + post a notice saying they won’t do it again

Amazon’s union busting strategy starts with surveillance.

Since 2017, @Amazon has hired more than 20 former FBI agents. Last year, Amazon was caught trying to hire two “intelligence analysts” tasked with tracking “labor organizing threats.”

theintercept.com/2021/02/11/ama…

Amazon uses spies to monitor workers and disrupt union organizing drives.

Amazon hired Pinkerton—a notorious union busting firm that massacred hundreds of American workers in the 1880s and 90s—to spy on workers organizing in their European warehouses. vice.com/en/article/5dp…

In the U.S., Amazon hired “union avoidance” firm Morgan Lewis to stop workers from unionizing at a Delaware warehouse in 2014.

After organizing an “intense pressure” campaign to bust the union, Amazon hired a Morgan Lewis lawyer as their Director of Corporate Employee Relations.

Morgan Lewis is a key part of big business’s war on working people. They helped:

-Banks stop union organizing in after the 2008 financial crisis
-General Motors break the strike in 2019
-McDonald’s defeat unionization and the $15 minimum wage
-Ronald Reagan bust the PATCO union

Morgan Lewis has also represented Amazon against:

-Local and state officials who accused Amazon of taking inadequate precautions on COVID-19
-Workers who were fired for speaking out about unsafe conditions
-Workers who were discriminated against for supporting #BlackLivesMatter

Morgan Lewis is working with Amazon to bust the @BamazonUnion in Alabama.

On Tuesday, @LALabor marched to Morgan Lewis in solidarity with the workers in Bessemer.

https://twitter.com/LALabor/status/1374065260131360768?s=20

Amazon also uses surveillance against workers:

-geoSPatial Operating Console software heatmaps union activity
-Amazon’s HR department monitors employee listservs & closed Facebook groups
-Scanners count the number of seconds between each task
-Cameras track workers’ every move

Amazon threatens or fires workers who organize. During the pandemic, they’ve fired:

-Warehouse workers in New York, Minneapolis, and Chicago for leading walkout against unsafe conditions
-Two tech employees who circulated a petition about health risks for warehouse workers

This month, the NLRB ruled Amazon had illegally threatened Jonathan Bailey, a lead organizer of the Queens walkouts.

“A manager introduced himself as a former FBI agent and pulled Bailey into management's offices and interrogated him about his role in the walkout.”

Why does Amazon keep breaking labor law? There are no consequences.

After the “intense pressure” campaign against workers who wanted to unionize in 2014, Amazon’s settlement with federal regulators included a promise that they would rigorously obey rules in the future.

In their 2014 settlement, Amazon was required to post a notice to workers saying, “We will not”:

-threaten to fire or "get" you
-interrogate you
-engage in surveillance of you

According to @Motherboard, Amazon’s 2021 settlement requires them to post a similar list.