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    Amazon threatened workers over union vote: Labour officials

    Synopsis

    The NLRB's Brooklyn-based regional director has determined that, prior to that election, the company held mandatory "captive audience" meetings at the warehouse in which it threatened that if workers chose the union to represent them, Amazon could use minimum wage pay as the starting point for negotiations.

    AmazonAP
    US labour board prosecutors plan to accuse Amazon.com Inc. of threatening staff that if they unionized it could propose paying them minimum wage and of punishing an employee for seeking a paid Juneteenth holiday.

    Unless the company settles, the National Labor Relations Board will issue a complaint, agency spokesperson Kayla Blado said Thursday. An Amazon spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
    The allegations are among many taken to the labor board by the Amazon Labor Union, the upstart group that scored an upset election victory last month at a warehouse in New York's Staten Island.

    The NLRB's Brooklyn-based regional director has determined that, prior to that election, the company held mandatory "captive audience" meetings at the warehouse in which it threatened that if workers chose the union to represent them, Amazon could use minimum wage pay as the starting point for negotiations. The company also said they might take years to get an actual union contract, or never get one, and that while those contract talks were going on, Amazon couldn't make improvements to their working conditions, according to Blado.

    The labor board official also found merit in the union's claim that when an employee used Amazon's "Voice of the Associate" board at the warehouse to advocate for a paid Juneteenth holiday, the company retaliated by barring that worker from posting there again.



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