After Amazon employees in a huge Staten Island warehouse achieved an upset union victory last month, it turned union leaders into celebrities, sent shocking waves into the wider labor movement and prompted politicians across the country to unite behind Amazon workers. Now it also seems to have had implications for Amazon’s management ranks.
On Thursday, Amazon informed more than half a dozen senior executives at the Staten Island warehouse that they had been fired, said four current and former employees familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The layoffs, which occurred outside the typical review cycle of the company’s employees, were considered by managers and other people working at the facility in response to the victory of the Amazon Labor Union, three of the people said. Warehouse workers voted by a wide margin to form the company’s first union in the United States, one of the biggest victories for organized labor in at least a generation.
Rumors of the shaking spread through the warehouse on Thursday. Many managers were responsible for implementing the company’s response to union efforts. Several are veterans of the company, with more than six years of experience, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Workers who supported the union complained that the company’s health and safety protocols were too weak, especially with regard to Covid-19 and recurrent injuries, and that the company had insisted on them too hard to achieve its performance targets. often at the expense of sufficient interruptions. Many also said the pay in the warehouse, which starts at more than $ 18 an hour for full-time workers, is too low to live in New York.
Understand Amazon’s unification efforts
An Amazon spokesman said the company had made changes to its management after spending several weeks evaluating aspects of “operations and leadership” at JFK8, the company’s name for the warehouse. “Part of our culture at Amazon is constantly improving, and we believe it’s important to take the time to reconsider whether we’re doing the best we can for our team,” said Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman.
Managers were told they had been fired as part of an “organizational change”, two people said. One person said that some of the managers are strong performers who have recently received positive feedback.
The Staten Island facility is Amazon’s only implementation center in New York, and for a year, current and former workers at the facility have organized to form an independent trade union.
The company disputed the election, saying the union’s unconventional tactics were coercive and that the National Labor Council was biased in favor of the union. And the union is working to keep up the pressure on Amazon, so it will negotiate a contract.
Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union, testified Thursday before a Senate committee that is investigating whether companies that violate labor laws should be denied federal contracts. Mr Smalls later attended a White House meeting with other labor organizers, in which he directly asked President Biden to pressure Amazon to recognize his alliance.
A White House spokeswoman said the National Labor Council needed to validate the results of the last election, but confirmed that Mr Biden had long supported collective bargaining and workers’ rights.
Amazon said it had invested $ 300 million in security projects in 2021 alone and that it was paying above the minimum wage with solid benefits such as full-time health care for workers as soon as they joined the company.
Employees and consultants of the company held more than 20 mandatory meetings a day with employees before the election, trying to persuade workers not to support the union. Officials highlighted the amount of money the union would collect from them, stressing the uncertainty of collective bargaining, which they said could put workers at a disadvantage.
Labor experts say such allegations can be misleading, as it is very unusual for workers to see their compensation fall as a result of the union bargaining process.
This is an evolving story. Check again for updates.
Grace Ashford contributed to the report. Sheelagh McNeill contributed to the study.
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