In what some are characterizing as part of a last attempt to fortify worker rights before the Biden administration passes the torch, The NLRB, in a 3-1 decision, released a ruling on Wednesday banning anti-union captive audience meetings – meetings where the employer expresses its views on unionization under threat of discipline or discharge for non-attendance. The decision was borne out of Amazon’s conduct in response to unionization efforts at the Amazon Staten Island warehouse in 2022. The workers were ultimately successful in unionizing, but prior to the election, Amazon had held “hundreds of meetings there and at another location to discourage workers from supporting a union.” Chairman McFerran, in discussing the implications of the decision, stated “[t]oday’s decision better protects workers’ freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner.” Amazon plans to appeal the decision on the basis that it is a First Amendment violation and in direct contradiction with the text of the NRLA. Another open question is how this ruling, which has overruled a “decades-old standard,” will fare under a Trump administration. 

In other Amazon-related news, an administrative law judge ruled that Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama are entitled to a third union vote due to the taint of illegal employer influence on the earlier two attempts. The employer surveilled employees’ union activities, threated plant closure, held captive audience meetings, and removed pro-union materials from company areas. In the first unionization attempt, RWDSU, the union organizing the campaigns, stated that the company installed a mailbox in the parking lot to create “the false appearance that Amazon was conducting the election,” and that the security cameras in the parking could have given the impression of employer surveillance, hurting notions of privacy integral to the process. Amazon plans to appeal the ruling. The union is also challenging parts of the order due to the lack of remedies aimed at blocking future employer interference: RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum stated “We reject [the judge’s] decision not to provide any of the significant and meaningful remedies which we requested and would be required for a free and fair election. There is no reason to expect a different result in a third election – unless there are additional remedies. Otherwise, Amazon will continue repeating its past behavior and the Board will continue ordering new elections.”