Amazon labor organizers challenge union election loss, alleging employer coercion ...Middle East

As organizers seeking to unionize Amazon rally on Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, a shipping truck rolls out of the dock. (Photo: Brandon Kingdollar/NC Newsline)

After losing their bid to unionize the Amazon warehouse in Garner by a three-to-one margin in February, labor organizers with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment are challenging the election results, arguing Amazon coerced employees into voting against the union campaign.

In a filing with the National Labor Relations Board on Feb. 24, CAUSE alleges that Amazon misled workers into believing that they would lose existing benefits and wages if they voted in favor of the union, brought in a speaker who said the union would deport workers, and targeted pro-union workers for discipline throughout the election period.

“The Employer engaged in improper surveillance of employees, created the impression of surveillance, and interrogated employees regarding their Union support and Union activity,” the CAUSE objection reads. “The Employer selectively enforced workplace rules regarding performance standards and appearance, targeting known Union supporters for discipline and enforcement while ignoring similar violations by workers who were not known Union supporters.”

Though more than 30% of workers comprising the bargaining unit signed union cards in 2024 — representing the support of more than 1,000 warehouse associates — fewer ultimately voted in favor of the union, with just 829 voting in favor and 2,447 voting against, according to the NLRB. That left the union campaign far short of the majority vote necessary to win the right to bargain on behalf of the warehouse staff.

Eileen Hards, a spokesperson for Amazon, declined to comment on CAUSE’s allegations of coercion, surveillance, and selective discipline, but expressed satisfaction with the result of the election.

“Our team in Garner overwhelmingly chose to keep a direct relationship with Amazon,” Hards wrote in an emailed statement. “We look forward to continuing to make RDU1 a great place to work together, and to supporting our teammates as they build their futures with us.”

In March, the NLRB placed the union campaign’s challenge on hold while complaints around the company’s conduct during the election period are vetted. Meanwhile, labor activists are gearing up for renewed efforts at Garner’s RDU1 warehouse as well as additional facilities throughout the Carolinas.

‘We desperately need the protection of the NLRB’

Since 2022, CAUSE has brought more than a dozen unfair labor practice complaints against Amazon, largely focusing on employee terminations, discipline of union organizers, and a general climate of surveillance.

The first of these complaints, coming in June 2022, soon after the union campaign’s formation, cited warehouse rules forbidding discussion of wages, hours, and other working conditions as an illegal prohibition on union activity. It also pointed to the end of site-specific COVID-19 updates, restrictions on the company’s internal discussion board, and the removal of a “web clock punch” feature on the employee app as impediments to protected labor activities.

The most extensive labor litigation pursued by the union surrounded disciplinary action against its co-founder, Rev. Ryan Brown, who alleged in 2022 that his complaints about warehouse conditions and racial discrimination were met with retaliation from supervisors, including a “final written warning.”

In a May 2024 response to the complaint, Amazon conceded that it issued the warning but denied that “such discipline was issued for any unlawful purpose” and was instead purely due to violation of company policy.

Arguing that the complaint should be dismissed, attorneys for Amazon went further than the facts of the individual case: they claimed the NLRB’s adjudicative procedures themselves are inherently unconstitutional, as board administrators are “improperly insulated from the President’s removal power.”

“The Complaint should be dismissed because the agency procedures through which the Complaint will be resolved violate Article II of the United States Constitution,” attorneys for Amazon wrote. “The National Labor Relations Board’s concurrent exercise of legislative, executive, and judicial power in this proceeding violates the separation of powers established by the United States Constitution and the guarantee of due process found in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Though Amazon was ordered in September 2024 — nearly two years after the initial complaint — to produce documents relating to policy complaints and allegations of discrimination that Brown and other employees voiced, the union withdrew its complaint the following month, due to the time and expense of the lengthy appeals process.

CAUSE has alleged that several employees have lost their jobs as a result of union organizing leading up to and during the election period, including Brown and Duke professor Orin Starn. Those terminations have continued in the wake of the election, organizers say, including that of Diedre King in March. According to CAUSE, she worked at the Garner warehouse for four years with an unblemished disciplinary record and was an “active, dedicated, and visible” member of the union organizing committee before she was accused of slapping a coworker during the election period, a claim she denies.

King said in the wake of her termination, she has received “amazing” support from other members of CAUSE. Organizers set up a fundraiser that has raised more than $5,500 for her as of Friday, and she said she also received a flood of calls offering support, even from colleagues she did not know before. “They call, they check up on me and see what I’m doing, get me out, get me involved in stuff — and not want me to sit at home and, like, be really depressed.”

Starn, the Duke professor, pointed to King’s termination and that of another employee afterwards as evidence of a “mass purge” targeting union organizers. A worker on the warehouse’s loading dock and an active organizer with the union, Starn was let go in December 2023 after a social media post in which he toasted the union effort with a sip of rum in the parking lot after work.

While the company cited its drug and alcohol policy as grounds for the dismissal, Starn wrote in an October 2024 NLRB appeal letter that he was instead let go for the “real and illegal reason” of openly campaigning for the union, one of just three workers doing so at the time.

“My firing damaged our effort by keeping me out of the facility and the chance to mobilize workers there, although we are making strong progress in our card collection nonetheless,” he wrote. “We desperately need the protection of the NLRB in supporting rightful complaints like mine to keep a powerful company from getting away with demoralizing illegal tactics in trying to suppress worker efforts to have a voice in the workplace.”

Hards, the Amazon spokesperson, wrote in a statement that Starn’s termination was not related to his union activities and disputed his characterization of selective enforcement of the company’s drug and alcohol policy.

“The decision to terminate Mr. Starn was unrelated to whether he supported any particular cause or group. Mr. Starn was terminated for violating Amazon’s drug and alcohol policy, a violation that has resulted in several other terminations at RDU1 in the past,” she wrote. “We expect all of our employees to follow our policies, and we take appropriate action when those policies are violated.”

Ultimately, of the 13 labor complaints brought by CAUSE organizers, all but two have been dismissed or withdrawn — the most recent of those complaints, an expansive Feb. 7 complaint alleging a campaign of surveillance, intimidation, and retaliation by Amazon throughout the election period, remains open, as does a Jan. 15 complaint citing the arrest of CAUSE supporters on warehouse property in December. A Feb. 12 complaint that Amazon brought against the union over the removal of company posters is also still active.

A resolution to CAUSE’s election objections will come only after their prior complaints are adjudicated. “I have determined to postpone the objections hearing until I determine the merits of the related pending unfair labor practice allegations and whether consolidation of the pending objections with an unfair labor practice proceeding before an administrative law judge is warranted,” NLRB regional director Michael Turner wrote in March.

With President Donald Trump’s election, however, it appears CAUSE’s claims may well face an uphill battle with the NLRB. In March, Trump nominated Crystal Carey as the board’s next general counsel — a management-side labor lawyer whose firm has represented Amazon in labor disputes and advanced the claim that the board itself is unconstitutional.

Union supporters allege ‘a total fear campaign’

At the center of the ongoing dispute over the labor election results is the conduct of Amazon and the union campaign during the election period, from late 2024 to early 2025.

Organizers say Amazon carried out a campaign of intimidation and union-busting, culminating in the arrest of CAUSE supporters on warehouse property, while the company says the campaign went too far in its efforts to reach workers on the premises and counter company messaging, accusing them of trespassing and vandalism.

In their Feb. 24 election challenge, lawyers for CAUSE wrote that the thrust of Amazon’s messaging campaign was that unionizing would be “futile” and was likely to lead to the rollback of higher wages, benefits like volunteer and unpaid time off, and other employment protections that the company had granted in the absence of organized representation.

“[Amazon] threatened employees with the loss of benefits and/or pay if workers voted in favor of being represented by the Union,” the attorneys wrote. “[They] solicited employees to participate in the production of anti-Union marketing materials, and took video footage of employees to use in anti-Union videos without the employees’ knowledge or consent.”

Italo Medelius, a CAUSE organizer who worked the warehouse’s shipping dock, said managers and employee relations consultants would walk the warehouse floor, soliciting workers and discouraging them from joining the union. This was paired with a “Vote No” promotional video that aired on repeat on televisions across the facility’s lobbies and break rooms, which he said featured a former Teamster making the case that union representation would only harm the workers. “So just a total fear campaign, 24/7 inside of that warehouse,” he said.

According to a report by LaborLab, a pro-union nonprofit corporate watchdog, Amazon paid management-side consulting firm Road Warrior Productions more than $366,000 over the span of roughly a month to create anti-union materials used in the election, which the organization condemned as “union-busting services.”

“Amazon is one of the greatest union busters in the history of the world,” said Medelius. “They cover every single inch of that warehouse in some way, shape, or form with anti-union propaganda.”

Hards, the Amazon spokesperson, cited the extensive organizing efforts across Amazon facilities throughout the U.S. as necessitating the use of labor consulting firms. She pointed to “tens of billions of dollars in benefits” including health care, a 401K program with a company match, and pre-paid college tuition as evidence that investments in workers vastly outweigh the use of those services.

“We also know that there are outside organizations working hard and spending heavily to spread inaccurate information about us to our teams. Which is also why we work to ensure our employees are fully informed about their rights and how decisions about outside representation could impact their day-to-day lives working at Amazon,” Hards wrote in a statement.

Medelius also described an anti-union persuasion campaign that he said targeted Spanish-speaking workers specifically, which he said invoked racial stereotypes in an attempt to divide workers. Medelius, who is bilingual, said he was individually banned from Amazon’s Spanish-language informational meetings after speaking out against these tactics. He added that on one occasion, he was required to report for a random drug test minutes after speaking out at one of these meetings, an experience he said other organizers reported as well.

“The crazy thing is that we’ve been fighting for translation in Human Resources. So, if somebody that’s a Spanish speaker has an issue that needs to be resolved by HR, I have to go with them to translate for them,” Medelius said. “But when it comes to union busting, everything is in Spanish, so it’s kind of a little bit dystopian there.”

Starn recounted a town hall meeting in which a manager sought to associate CAUSE with immigrant deportation efforts to “raise fear and uncertainty” among workers and scare them out of supporting the union effort.

“At one of the town hall meetings, one of the mangers says, you know, ‘We’ve been hearing that CAUSE is telling people that if they vote no, they’ll be deported, and we don’t think anybody should be deported,’” Starn said. “This is a completely outlandish charge, but it’s the kind of thing Amazon does.”

This incident was also detailed in the election challenge, with attorneys for the union campaign writing that Amazon “coerced and intimidated employees into voting against Union representation by falsely accusing the Union of suggesting workers could be deported for voting no” and themselves “suggesting that workers’ immigration status could be impacted by the results of the election.”

According to Hards, employees came forward with complaints that union organizers told them if they did not vote in favor of the union, they could face deportation, and the comments during the informational session were intended to rebut those claims.

The complaint also alleges that Amazon took action against specific employees to prevent them from voting in favor of the union, including delaying a known union supporter’s return-to-work date until after the election had concluded. And it details a culture of surveillance in which workers’ social media accounts were allegedly monitored for statements about the campaign and where workers were “interrogated” about support for the union.

Many of these allegations were also the subject of a Feb. 7 unfair labor practice complaint filed by CAUSE that remains open, including a claim that workers were explicitly asked to report union activity to management and that Amazon selectively targeted known union supporters for disciplinary action.

These claims have been a persistent subject of CAUSE’s labor complaints long before the union card campaign concluded, with their attorneys writing in a May 2023 unfair labor practice complaint that Amazon was “instructing its employees to file internal complaints against supporters of [CAUSE]” and launching investigations against organizers to search for cause to terminate them.

The union alleges that interference with the election effort came to a head on Dec. 7, 2024, when three organizers not employed by Amazon were arrested by Garner Police on trespassing charges as they sought to pass out food and collect union cards outside the warehouse. Days later, Amazon also terminated Brown, the union co-founder, citing inflammatory remarks likening company management to slaveholders and labeling a defender of the company an “Uncle Tom.”

Hards declined to comment on the broader allegations of coercion and surveillance, but wrote that the company was within its rights to seek the removal of non-employees from its property during the Dec. 7 incident.

“Last December, several individuals who aren’t Amazon employees or partners came on to our property and refused multiple requests to leave,” Hards wrote. “After repeated attempts to remedy the situation and consistent with our standard protocols, we engaged law enforcement for assistance. Those individuals were eventually arrested after refusing to follow the police officer’s orders.”

She also condemned Brown for what she described as efforts to “push misinformation to the media” on his arrest and said his dismissal was the result of “repeated misconduct” including the use of “derogatory and racist language,” which the company had previously investigated. “His most recent violation resulted in his termination because we don’t tolerate that type of inappropriate behavior at Amazon.”

During this same period, Amazon alleges that union supporters tore down posters encouraging workers to vote no, labeling the actions as “acts of property damage.” CAUSE contends in its own complaint that scores of pro-union posters and signage from inside and outside the facility were destroyed — including signs posted in the break room and banners supporting the union hanging on the public sidewalk outside the warehouse.

Despite these setbacks, the card campaign succeeded in January after organizers collected signatures from more than 30% of workers comprising the prospective bargaining unit. But in February, they lost by a roughly three-to-one margin, a result that indicated there had been a falloff of support in the critical month leading up to the election — a result that Medelius said came as “a blow” in the moment.

“Ultimately, just looking at it, we knew that historically and logically we were facing an uphill battle from the very beginning,” Medelius said. “Everybody that’s a professional labor organizer has told us, you’re never gonna win the first time.”

‘This election hasn’t stopped the train’

On Friday, organizers with CAUSE once again set up their tents outside RDU1 — their first demonstration on-site since the election. As they renewed their pitch to workers, the company began work on a new eight-foot fence along the property line.

“My biggest fear leading up to the election was if there is a loss, or if there is a big loss with a big margin like what happened, that we would just collapse — that’s what Amazon pretty much hopes, right?” Medelius said. “But with us, I mean, the next day we had a meeting, that Sunday, and it was one of our most attended meetings. There were even people that voted no that were there and trying to figure out how we can build a better union.”

He described a mood of “optimism and hope” among organizers as the fight moves forward and called the 829 supporters in the warehouse a strong foothold to come back and succeed in the next effort. According to NLRB rules, a union campaign can file for a new election 12 months after the conclusion of the previous one. That means organizers could give Amazon “another Christmas present this year” with a renewed card authorization campaign, Medelius said.

King said she has heard from workers who voted no and who have had a change of heart since, pointing to issues like a wave of terminations after the election and excessive enforcement of policies like cell phone restrictions and “time off task” discipline.

“That’s why we’re out here today, to let people know that we’re still here,” she said on Friday, sitting under one of the tents to meet and persuade former coworkers. “We’re not going anywhere, and we have your back, but we need y’all to have ours as well.”

After the first election effort, Medelius said, organizers now have firsthand experience with the company’s anti-union tactics, giving them a better chance at countering their messaging among workers.

“Now we know the rules, we know what we’ve got to do, and we can come in with a better strategy,” Medelius said. “It’s kind of like a boxing match, right? You lose one round, but then you jump back and win the next three, so we’re very excited to do that.”

In particular, he outlined plans to strengthen CAUSE’s Hispanic Organizing Committee and day shift and night shift organizing committees, and to begin collecting authorization cards year-round. He added that organizers had been in contact with workers at the RDU5 and DRT8 warehouses in Durham as well as facilities in South Carolina who want to begin their own efforts, but declined to offer specific information about potential future campaigns, citing the need for secrecy around organizing strategies.

Benny Koval, chair of CAUSE’s night shift organizing committee, said the immediate priority was “what we can do on the shop floor,” pushing back on issues like excessive temperatures in the facility, post-holiday rush layoffs, and mandatory overtime days — one of which was slated to be on Mother’s Day before the company backtracked after employee outcries, Koval said.

“I feel like they’re just stepping on us to see how much we’ll take to a certain extent,” Koval said.

Meanwhile, efforts to unionize Amazon continue throughout the U.S., particularly across the South. In Louisville, Kentucky, workers at the company’s KCVG Air Hub are seeking to organize through the Teamsters, and in Bessemer, Alabama, labor officials have ordered Amazon to hold a third union election after finding unlawful interference in previous attempts.

Abraham Walker, a sociology professor at Fayetteville State University, said the South poses some structural obstacles for union campaigns. Every state in the region is a “right-to-work” state, meaning that workplaces cannot make union membership compulsory and all workers are entitled to the same benefits regardless of union affiliation, creating what Walker called a “free rider problem” in which workers reap the rewards of union-bargained contracts without paying dues to support organizing efforts. And because of the low rates of union membership throughout the South, many workers do not know anyone who is a member of a union, leaving them susceptible to misinformation about union impacts, Walker said.

He noted that in Chattanooga, Tennessee, it took three elections before workers at the city’s Volkswagen plant voted to unionize the facility in 2024. Walker said a benefit of CAUSE’s status as an independent grassroots campaign is that “they’re not going anywhere.” He cited “very strong coalitions” the organizers built across the Research Triangle as a source of structural support that will allow the union to renew its efforts going forward.

“Despite the final tally, I see a lot of promise in CAUSE’s future,” Walker said. “There’s going to be a process of reassessment, I think, going forward. They will in all likelihood try to do this again — it might not be a year, it might be a few years from now, but one of the things about Amazon warehouses, which is both challenging and potentially an advantage, is the turnover’s high.”

The New York Times reported in 2021 that Amazon sees a roughly 150% turnover rate among its hourly associates each year. Medelius said this was a source of difficulty in this year’s election because many of those who signed authorization cards were already gone from the warehouse by February. But that fact can also be turned to the union campaign’s advantage, he said: many, if not most, of the 2,447 who voted against the union will no longer be with at RDU1 in a year’s time, giving organizers “a brand-new warehouse” for its next effort.

“All we’ve gotta do is keep our supporters, make sure that we keep telling them our motto, ‘Don’t quit, organize,’ and that’s the way that we’re going to out-organize them, so the plan right now is keep calling for an election — if we lose, do it again,” Medelius said.

“We’re going to organize as if we had won the election, we’re going to continue building our movement, and we’re gonna continue not just within RDU1, but all across the Carolinas,” he added. “This election hasn’t stopped the train.”

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