By Josh Eidelson, Bloomberg
A US labor board judge ruled that Amazon.com Inc. must collectively bargain with California warehouse workers, teeing up a legal battle that could end with President Donald Trump’s appointees reversing a major union-friendly precedent.
In a Monday ruling, National Labor Relations Board judge Michael Silverstein found that Amazon violated federal law by refusing to recognize the Teamsters union after it obtained majority support from a group of employees at a San Francisco delivery center in 2024. Silverstein’s ruling relied on a Biden-era NLRB precedent, Cemex Construction Materials Pacific LLC.Under Cemex, if a union signs up a legitimate majority of staff, a company is required to either recognize and bargain with the labor group, or ask the NLRB to hold an election testing its support. Amazon, the judge wrote, did neither.
The judge’s ruling represents one of only a few times the e-commerce giant has ever been ordered to collectively bargain with US employees. But like other recent rulings against the company involving a New York City warehouse and a Philadelphia Whole Foods store, it is unlikely to actually lead to collective bargaining any time soon.Instead, the San Francisco ruling can be appealed to the NLRB members in Washington, DC, where Republicans now hold a majority and could use the case as an opportunity to undo the Cemex precedent.
“We disagree with this administrative law judge’s decision, we’re appealing it, and we’re confident that a court will overrule it,” Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson said in an emailed statement. The company has denied wrongdoing and, like prominent business advocates, argued the Cemex precedent is unlawful.
The union said Tuesday it would do everything in its power to make Amazon comply with the judge’s decision.
“Amazon has repeatedly demonstrated it has no interest in recognizing its workforce or respecting workers enough to meet them at the table,” the Teamsters’ Amazon division director, Randy Korgan, said in an emailed statement. “But as the new ruling proves, Amazon cannot forever dodge its legal obligations.”
(Adds union comment in final paragraph.)
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