Amazon has settled out a disagreement with two workers that the National Labor Relations Board said were fired for their involvement. In April 2020, the firm fired Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa after they had prearranged a protest against Amazon’s work with gas and oil companies, as well as floating worries with the firm’s coronavirus measures at its warehouses. In a joint announcement, Coasta and Cunningham said that the firm would have to pay them lost wages as well as notify employees that they couldn’t be fired for organizing protests. They have not declared whether they would be getting their jobs as UX designers back.
During the NLRB’s ruling, Amazon said that it affected the verdicts and that Costa and Cunningham had been fired only because they had violent of internal policies. NLRB rulings don’t convey the weight of ones handed down by federal judges, but the labour relations board can dispute to the legal system that its orders should be obligatory. Frequently, though, the two can argue to the legal system that its orders should be imposed. Often, however, the two parties will resolve issues as we saw today.
What did Amazon say regarding the activist case?
Though Amazon did not respond to the request for comment instantly but told CNBC that it and the employees had “extended a mutual agreement which resolves all the legal issues in this case and welcome the resolution of this matter” Costa and Cunningham called the settlement a win for defending worker’s rights.
Amazon faces several NLRB complaints, and the NLRB issued an initial assessment in August that the firm illegally restricted with the highly publicized warehouse union drive in Bessemer, Alabama. That case is still open now!
Amazon has already been a prerequisite to posting notices informing workers regarding their labour rights because of preceding settlements, so that is not a new victory for organizers or activists. Some workers have claimed that the settlements and NLRB rulings don’t convey sufficient penalties for Amazon to change its tit-for-tat behaviour against its employees.
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