The NLRB’s Assault on Amazon
By The Editorial Board June 16, 2023 6:48 pm ET National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo Photo: Rod Lamkey - Cnp/Zuma Press The Biden Administration can’t pass its union agenda through Congress, so the National Labor Relations Board is rewriting labor law by itself. Behold the agency’s recent charges against Amazon that effectively strip employers of speech and property rights. Unions have been campaigning to organize Amazon warehouses around the country. Workers can choose whether or not to unionize, but NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is putting her thum
National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo
Photo: Rod Lamkey - Cnp/Zuma Press
The Biden Administration can’t pass its union agenda through Congress, so the National Labor Relations Board is rewriting labor law by itself. Behold the agency’s recent charges against Amazon that effectively strip employers of speech and property rights.
Unions have been campaigning to organize Amazon warehouses around the country. Workers can choose whether or not to unionize, but NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is putting her thumb on the scale by accusing Amazon of violating the National Labor Relations Act and requiring the company to give unions unfettered access to its facilities.
The NLRB complaint filed May 22 cites CEO Andy Jassy’s statements to the New York Times last November explaining why workers are better off without a union. If workers have a gripe, “they don’t have to go through a union. It’s not bureaucratic, it’s not slow,” Mr. Jassy said.
He added: “We like to hear from all our employees as opposed to having it filtered through one or two voices,” and “when you have unions, you often end up with this us-versus-them mentality that’s not as productive when you’re trying to invent and trying to accomplish what we are on the scale we are.” This is hardly a radical view of labor relations.
The Taft-Hartley Act protects an employer’s right to communicate with employees as long as their communications don’t contain threats of force, reprisals, or promises of benefits. But according to the NLRB complaint, Mr. Jassy’s statements interfere with employees’ right to engage in concerted activity. It doesn’t explain why or how.
Ms. Abruzzo’s interpretation of labor law contravenes a 7-2 Supreme Court decision in 2008 that affirmed employers’ right to speak against unions. The ruling in Chamber of Commerce v. Brown notes that Taft-Hartley was motivated in part by “congressional intent to encourage free debate on issues dividing labor and management.” If Mr. Jassy’s comments are unlawful, employers have no speech rights.
Ms. Abruzzo also takes issue with Amazon’s “off duty access” policy that states that “during their off-duty periods (that is, on their days off and before and after their shifts), employees are not permitted inside the building or in working areas outside the building.” Many employers restrict off-hours worker access to facilities for security reasons.
Yet Ms. Abruzzo’s unprecedented order requires Amazon to rescind its off-duty policy to give unions free run of workplaces. Two years ago the Supreme Court struck down a similar California union-access mandate for farm employers because it “appropriates a right to invade the growers’ property and therefore constitutes a per se physical taking.” The same is true of the NLRB diktat.
Amazon last week argued in a response that Ms. Abruzzo’s order violates its First and Fifth Amendment rights. It adds that her radical interpretation of labor law violates the Constitution’s major questions doctrine, which requires clear authorization from Congress on matters of major economic and political significance.
The NLRB’s assault on Amazon is intended as a warning to all employers. Credit to Amazon for not surrendering.
Wonder Land: Inspired by China and Saudi Arabia, Team Biden's vision for U.S. industrial policy is one in which the government explicitly leads; everyone else follows. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images Composite: Mark Kelly The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
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