Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law with comments he made to the press about the company’s unionization efforts, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled Wednesday.
NLRB Administrative Law Judge Brian Gee cited interviews Jassy gave in 2022 on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Bloomberg TV, and the New York Times’ Dealbook conference. The interview coincided with an uptick in union activity in Amazon’s warehouse and delivery operations.
Jassy told CNBC in April 2022 that if employees vote for a union, they would have less power in the workplace and things could become “much slower” and “more bureaucratic.” . Similarly, in an interview with Bloomberg, Jassy said, “If I see something that I think is better for my team or for me or for my customers, I can’t just go to my manager and say, “Let’s change that.” “It’s not going to happen,” he said. “”
At the DealBook conference, Jassy said that without unions, workplaces are “less bureaucratic and less slow.”
Gee said those comments “threatened employees that if they chose to unionize, they would have less power and it would be harder to move things forward quickly.”
The NLRB filed a complaint against Amazon and Jassy in October 2022. Gee said in Wednesday’s ruling that Jassy’s other statements about unionizing changing the relationship between workers and employers were legal. But the Amazon president’s other comments about workers having less power and “being better off” without unions were “more than simply commenting on the employee-employer relationship.” Violated labor laws.
Amazon spokeswoman Mary Kate Paradis said in a statement that the company disagrees with the NLRB’s ruling and plans to appeal.
“This decision does not reflect well on the state of the right to free speech today. “I’m optimistic,” Paradis said.
The judge ordered Amazon to “cease and desist” from making such comments in the future and recommended that Amazon post and distribute notices of the order to employees nationwide.