Labour Officials Stated that Amazon Threatened Workers Over Union Vote

Prosecutors in the United States are planning to charge Amazon.com Inc. for threatening employees that if they are unionised, the company would propose paying them minimum wage and punishing one employee who requested a paid Juneteenth holiday. The National Labor Relations Board will file a complaint unless the employer settles, according to agency representative Kayla Blado. 

The Amazon Labor Union, an insurgent group that won an unexpected election victory last month at a warehouse in Staten Island, has filed a number of complaints with the labour board.

Prior to the election, the NLRB's Brooklyn-based regional director ruled that the corporation organised forced "captive audience" meetings at the warehouse in which it threatened that if workers chose the union to represent them, Amazon would use minimum wage pay as a bargaining point.

According to Blado, Amazon also stated that getting a real union contract may take years, if not years and that while such conversations were going on, they couldn't change their working conditions.

The labour board commissioner also agreed with the union that when an employee used Amazon's "Voice of the Associate" board at the warehouse to push for a paid Juneteenth holiday, the firm penalised by prohibiting the employee from posting there again.