In February 2023, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy despatched an electronic mail to the corporate’s employees outlining new return-to-work pointers. Beforehand, particular person groups inside the firm might determine the place staff have been anticipated to work, however Jassy’s electronic mail revealed that beginning on Might 1st, 2023, most Amazon staff have been anticipated to work from the workplace at the least three days per week. (Some roles, equivalent to salespeople and buyer assist, have been exempted.)
In response, 1000’s of Amazon employees signed petitions towards the brand new mandate and staged a walkout a number of months later. Regardless of the protests and pushback, in response to a report by Insider, in a gathering in early August 2023, Jassy reaffirmed the corporate’s dedication to staff returning to the workplace for almost all of the week.
The NLRB criticism alleges Amazon “interrogated” staff in regards to the walkout utilizing its inside Chime system. The worker was first placed on a efficiency enchancment plan by Amazon following their organizing efforts for the walkout and later “provided a severance fee of 9 weeks’ wage if the worker signed a severance settlement and international launch in change for his or her resignation.”
Based on the NLRB’s legal professionals, all of that was as a result of the worker engaged in organizing, and the retaliation was supposed to discourage “…protected, concerted actions.”
The identify of the worker within the NLRB criticism is redacted. Final yr, The Seattle Times profiled one of many walkout organizers, who was — after the walkout — placed on a efficiency enchancment plan that the paper describes as “recognized for being almost not possible to flee.” A element describing how investigators questioned this explicit particular person over allegedly encouraging different staff “to be indignant at Amazon” is talked about each within the criticism and within the article.
The NLRB’s basic counsel is looking for a number of totally different types of remediation from Amazon, together with reimbursement for the worker’s “monetary harms and search-for-work and work associated bills,” a letter of apology, and a “Discover to Workers” that should be bodily posted on the firm’s services throughout the nation, distributed electronically, and skim by an Amazon rep at a recorded videoconference. The contents of the “Discover to Workers” was not specified.
Amazon responded to the NLRB’s criticism immediately, and Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, shared the next assertion with The Verge:
“The information of this case are clear and don’t have anything to do with whether or not this former worker opposed our return-to-office steerage. She persistently underperformed over a interval of almost a yr and repeatedly didn’t ship on tasks she was assigned. Regardless of in depth assist and training, the previous worker was unable to enhance her efficiency and selected to depart the corporate.”
If Amazon and the worker don’t settle, a listening to is deliberate with an NLRB Administrative Legislation Decide (ALJ) in Seattle on February 4th, 2025.