Amazon BUSTED — On Trial for Violating Workers’ Rights at KCVG

April 26, 2024

This week, Amazon went on trial for their illegal spying and harassment of pro-union KCVG workers. The trial was before an administrative law judge. The National Labor Relations Board (the federal government) is prosecuting Amazon after finding that our charges were legitimate and that Amazon did indeed violate federal law.

KCVG workers outside the Cincinnati Federal Building before Amazon’s union-busting trial.

We held a standout outside the Cincinnati Federal Building before the trial began to say loud and clear that workers won’t be stopped! There was great media coverage of our standout and the trial.

Links to press coverage:

• VIDEO - Workers in Greater Cincinnati, from Amazon to the VA hospital, fight for workplace rights

• Amazon is on Trial in Cincinnati. Here’s What You Need to Know

• Cincinnati Leaders, Labor Expert React to Amazon Union-Busting Trial 

• Amazon accused of delay tactics in KCVG Air Hub workers' unfair labor practices case

Amazon is very scared about this trial, because it exposes their law-breaking to the wider public. To defend them, Amazon brought in high-priced lawyers from the notorious union-busting law firm Seyfarth Shaw. The lawyers came from San Francisco and Houston, and likely were paid several hundred dollars an hour apiece to defend the company. 

Because even Amazon’s lawyers know that the company broke the law, their playbook was to try to deflect and delay. From the first day (Monday, April 22), they raised all kinds of objections to providing the evidence that the Labor Board had requested. As a result, the judge gave them more time to come up with the evidence. 

We know that the legal system was never designed to help workers. Rather, it helps corporations and the super rich. That’s why Amazon was able to buy time and get the court proceedings delayed. (The trial will resume in August.)

To top it all off, Amazon is refusing to pay workers who are witnesses for our lost days of work during the trial, which is only happening because THEY broke the law and violated our rights!

“Amazon is one of the most powerful companies in the world and has long used their power to illegally bust union organizing efforts across the country. Workers have a fundamental right to organize and band together to have a voice in their workplace, and anyone trying to violate that right should be held accountable.”

— U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown

Everyone is naturally asking: If Amazon is so confident (as they say) that they didn’t break the law, why not go ahead with the trial? We know the answer: They are scared of being held accountable in court, so they are trying to drag things out. But delay tactics won’t save them in the end.

We also know that Amazon wouldn’t be fighting us so hard in court if they also didn’t recognize our growing strength at KCVG. Jeff Bezos doesn’t like that we’re fighting for $30/hour starting pay, 180 hours of paid time off, translation rights at work, paid child care, and union representation. He doesn’t like that we’re getting stronger even though his managers have unleashed a no-holds-barred union-busting campaign against us.

It’s shameful that Amazon is paying lawyers tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to delay delay delay. Amazon is choosing to pay these rich lawyers instead of providing healthcare to seasonal workers and their families. Amazon is choosing to pay the lawyers instead of committing to pay us Prime Pay for Prime Day. Amazon is paying these lawyers instead of providing us with $30/hour starting pay, and good raises for RME workers to meet area standards.

Amazon's delay tactics this week are revealing their endless greed and are energizing us even more to fight for recognition of our union and a union contract. 

Amazon is making a choice in how to fight us with their high-priced lawyers and delaying tactics. And now we have to make our own choice: To accept what Amazon’s doing, or to fight back by beginning to organize for big actions leading up to Prime Day. We have the power to bring about Amazon’s day of reckoning and make them PAY UP with Prime Pay for Prime Days!

Eleven Pro-Union Workers at KCVG Given Illegal Final Written Warnings for Union Activity

On Saturday, November 18 and Sunday, November 19 Amazon gave eleven pro-union workers at Amazon’s largest air hub, KCVG, in Northern Kentucky final written warnings. Amazon is disciplining these workers for “insubordination” after workers refused to take down their table and easel in the employee parking garage.

All eleven workers will be appealing their final written warnings.

“They took my learning vest,” said Josh Crowell, who until November 18 worked as a Learning Ambassador at KCVG training new hires and one of the workers written up last weekend. “I’ve never been written up until now and receiving a write-up means you can’t be a Learning Ambassador. I think they just don’t want union supporters training new hires.”

Employers interfering with protected union activity, like setting up a table to talk to coworkers about a union, is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. Amazon has a well-documented history of illegal union busting, but their worst union busting to date should be expected at KCVG in the coming months given the importance of the facility to Amazon’s air freight operations.

Connor Spence, an Amazon worker at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island who played a leading role in Amazon Labor Union’s successful union drive in 2022 – the first and only to date at Amazon – went to Kentucky in early November to help KCVG workers’ effort.

“Amazon giving eleven workers final written warnings is a massive escalation,” Spence said. “We never saw anything like that at JFK8. Amazon is clearly scared of losing a second union election, and not just anywhere, but at their largest air hub.”

These illegal disciplinary actions by Amazon come in the wake of creative initiatives by Amazon Labor Union - KCVG. After Amazon’s third quarter financial filings showed they made $10 billion in profit, triple the previous quarter, workers displayed a six foot long blown up $10 billion check in the employee parking garage.

Pro-union workers at KCVG have set up tables outside of work to talk to coworkers nearly every day, often at multiple shift changes per day, since the launch of their union drive in March of this year. Over 1,000 workers have signed union cards.

Next to the table, workers displayed a homemade poster board on an easel reading, “Where Should the PROFITS Go? VOTE HERE!” The poster board listed several of the workers’ key demands: $30 an hour starting wage, free on-site childcare, professional translators, equipment repairs, double pay for flex (last-minute mandatory overtime).

Over 200 workers have placed stickers to register their vote in favor of one or more of these demands.

Workers refused to leave the employee parking garage and take down their table and easel, repeatedly citing to management their legal rights to talk to workers about unionizing under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

Since March, management and Aviation Security conducted “badge challenges” to verify workers’ employee status once per tabling shift. From November 7th to November 19th, badge challenges were conducted every 30 minutes alongside threats of “discipline up to and including termination” for insubordination. Many of these interactions workers recorded on video to ensure their documentation. From September 7th-8th, workers were badge challenged twenty times in just eight hours of union activity.

To fight back against this blatantly illegal intimidation and show management they weren’t backing down, on November 9, more than twenty five workers marched into KCVG General Manager Karthik Bagavathi Pandian’s office to hand deliver an Unfair Labor Practice. A video from the action has been watched over 4 million times on Tik Tok, alongside several other recent videos on the union’s Tik Tok account obtaining a mass viewership as well.

Just one week later, on November 16, workers again marched into the ramp building demanding an end to discrimination against immigrants and non-English speakers in KCVG’s hiring practices.

The notice given to Marcio Rodriguez, a planeside worker on the ramp at KCVG, informing him of his final written warning read, “Management gave you the directive to remove the table, and you did not follow the directive. Willful failure to comply with this directive is insubordination. Insubordination will not be tolerated in the workplace.”

Travis Lavenski, legal counsel to ALU-KCVG, wrote a letter directed at KCVG management that workers are attaching to their appeals. “Because the complained-of activity was conducted in a non-working area during non-working time, Amazon cannot forbid these workers from engaging in this protected, concerted activity,” wrote Lavenski.

Lavenski’s letter continues explaining why Amazon’s claim that the workers’ table was a “safety concern” is unfounded, as well as citing a previous case at the Cincinnati airport over essentially the same issue called DHL Express, Inc. v. N.L.R.B., 813 F.3d 365 (D.C. Cir. 2016).

According to Lavenski’s letter, in this case:

“an employer tried to cite ‘safety concerns’ as a reason to forbid its employees from setting up to solicit Union support in a mixed-use hallway area where employees checked in with security to enter and exit work. The DC Circuit affirmed the NLRB’s holding that the employer’s purported safety concerns were not considerable enough to prevent the workers from engaging in protected, concerted activity because the facts illustrated that the Union did not block the flow of traffic in the hallway, there was no actual disruption to the ingress and egress zones, no employees were placed in any real danger, and the Union was not breaking any TSA guidelines.”

“We won’t let them intimidate us,” said Jordan Quinn, who works in the sortation building at KCVG. “We knew this level of union busting would begin at some point. Amazon hates nothing more than their workers coming together to advocate for what we need. We made this company $10 billion last quarter and we’re not going to be deterred from unionizing to win demands like a $30/hr starting wage, free on-site childcare, translation at work, and more.”

If the union drive at KCVG is successful, it would join the 8,000 worker JFK8 facility on Staten Island in New York, where workers voted to unionize in April of last year, despite a series of acts of illegal retaliation by Amazon at the facility. The corporation has since refused to come to the table to discuss with Amazon Labor Union representatives of the legally-recognized union, despite being legally required to do so.

PROCESSUS D’APPEL D’AMAZON: Un Processus de Mensonge

Amazon est fier de ce qu’ils appellent « le processus d’appel ». C’est un processus dans lequel un travailleur peut contester toute sanction disciplinaire, y compris le licenciement. Du moins, c’est ce que prétend la compagnie.

La vérité est que bien que tout travailleur puisse demander à contester une sanction disciplinaire, le processus sera excessivement compliqué. Tout commence par votre demande de contestation de sanction. Les ressources humaines vous enverront alors des formulaires par courriel que vous devrez remplir et leur renvoyer. Vous ne pouvez pas le taper sur votre ordinateur, il doit être écrit à la main. Les formulaires posent des questions sur les raisons de votre appel, si vous avez essayé de discuter avec votre responsable au préalable, etc. Une fois que le dossier est renvoyé aux ressources humaines, ils sont censés vous contacter dans un délai de 7 jours ouvrables maximum pour fixer une date pour le recours.

Cependant, ce processus peut être prolongé ou retardé au gré d’Amazon. Une fois que l’appel est accepté et que vous avez fixé la date du recours, vous devrez rencontrer le directeur du site, à distance. L’ensemble de l’audience d’appel se déroule par téléphone. Le directeur du site vous lira la déclaration que vous avez rédigée et vous demandera si elle est correcte.

Ils demanderont ensuite d’éventuels témoins et prétendront qu’ils effectueront une « enquête » sur ce que vous avez déclaré et vous donneront une réponse dans un délai de 7 jours ouvrables.

Cette partie du processus peut également être retardée à leur convenance.

Les ressources humaines vous diront que vous avez le droit de faire appel de toute sanction disciplinaire devant un « panel de vos pairs », mais depuis quand le leadeurship du site est-il considéré comme vos pairs ? Tout le processus est une fumisterie.

Au lieu de vous permettre d’exprimer votre version des faits et de présenter des éléments concrets, ils veulent simplement lire votre déclaration et terminer la réunion aussi rapidement que possible. Aucune enquête de suivi n’est menée. Il n’y a aucun panel de vos pairs. Il n’y a aucune question que vous pouvez développer.

Tout le processus d’appel est là pour permettre à Amazon de prétendre qu’ils offrent à leurs employés un processus équitable pour exprimer leurs plaintes.

Ma question est la suivante : qu’y a-t-il de juste dans le processus lorsque les travailleurs n’ont même pas la possibilité de faire venir des témoins pour parler de l’incident ? Qu’y a-t-il de juste dans le processus lorsque l’ensemble de la procédure est menée en anglais, sans traducteurs pour ceux qui ne parlent pas anglais ?

C’est pourquoi les travailleurs ont besoin d’un syndicat. La seule façon d’obtenir un processus équitable est d’avoir une représentation syndicale lors des réunions disciplinaires, et un processus établi par le syndicat que Amazon devra suivre. Ce n’est qu’alors que les travailleurs auront un processus d’appel équitable et juste.

-Steven Kelley, ramp worker KCVG

AMAZON APPEALS: A Process Of Lies

Amazon is proud of what they refer to as “the appeals process”. It’s the process in which a worker can appeal any write-up, including termination, at least that’s what the company says.

The truth is that any worker can apply to appeal a write-up, but the process is overly complicated. It starts with you applying to appeal the write-up. HR will then send a packet of paperwork to your email that you are required to fill out and submit back to them. It cannot be typed and must be hand-written. It asks questions about why you are appealing, if you have tried talking to your manager first, etc. Once the packet is submitted back to HR, they are supposed to contact you no later than 7 business days to schedule the appeal.

However, that process can be extended or delayed at their convenience. Once the appeal is accepted and you have scheduled the appeal, you will be required to meet with the site director, but not in person. The whole appeal hearing is held over the phone. The site director will read you the statement you wrote, and ask if that is correct.

They will then ask for any potential witnesses and claim they will do some “investigation” into what you have stated and will get back to you within 7 business days. This part of the process can also be delayed at their convenience.

HR will tell you that you have the right to appeal any write up to a “panel of your peers”, but since when is the site leadership your peer? The whole process is a sham.

Instead of allowing you to voice your side of the story and give facts, they just want to read your statement, and get out of the meeting as quickly as possible. There is no follow-up investigation taken. There is no panel of your peers.

All the appeals process is there for is so that Amazon can say that they give their employees a fair process to air their grievances.

My question is what is fair about the process whenever the workers do not get a chance to even call witnesses to speak about the incident? What is fair about the process when the whole process is conducted in English with no translators for those that do not speak English?

This is why workers need a union. The only way to get a fair process is to have union representation at disciplinary meetings, and a process established by the union that Amazon will have to follow. Only then will the workers have a fair and just appeals process.

-Steven Kelley, ramp worker KCVG