In today’s news and commentary, Amazon suspends dozens of ALU members, the NLRB issues complaints against Apple and Exxon, and the Missouri Supreme Court upholds a statute designed to undermine public sector unions.

The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) announced this morning that at least 50 of its members at the organized warehouse in Staten Island have been suspended for engaging in what the union described as a protected work stoppage. Videos of the incident, which took place Monday evening and was reportedly intended to protest a fire at the facility, depict a chaotic scene in which dozens of workers demonstrate and chant in the facility’s cafeteria. Information remains limited; the ALU has so far declined to file any unfair labor practice charges in connection with the incident.

Region 2 of the NLRB, based in New York City, issued a complaint against Apple on Monday accusing the tech giant of unlawfully discriminating against union supporting employees at a Manhattan retail shop. The complaint alleges that the company abused its no-solicitation policy to discriminatorily block union supporters from placing flyers on breakroom tables. While Board caselaw permits uniform no-solicitation rules, selectively enforcing the rule so as to inhibit Sec. 7 activity is impermissible.

In other labor law enforcement actions, Region 16, based in Fort Worth, Tex., recently brought a complaint against Exxon Mobil, alleging that the oil giant’s 10-month lockout of hundreds of employees at a Texas refinery metamorphosized into an unlawful attempt to expel the union from the facility. During the lockout, which ended in March, the company allegedly informed employees it would allow them to return to work should they decertify the union, the USW. Instituting the lockout may have been lawful, the complaint says, but leveraging it to secure decertification was not. An administrative hearing is set for Jan. 9, 2023.

On Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of a 2018 state law that, among other things, strips thousands of state employees of merit system protections and subjects them to at-will discharge. The measure is part of a broader legislative package the GOP-dominated state legislature adopted at the urging of then-Gov. Eric Greitens aiming to dismantle public sector unions. Lower courts had blocked the law on the ground that it “eviscerated” the state’s constitutional guarantee of collective bargaining rights for public sector employees.

The state’s high court disagreed, however, concluding that the statute does not impermissibly curtail collective bargaining rights but “merely limits the terms and conditions of employment the State is authorized to bargain.” As the court framed it, the state remains “free to negotiate any and all employment terms and conditions that [the law] does not specifically restrict.”

For context, public employees in Missouri are among the lowest paid in the nation. And in recent months, staffing shortages have forced some agencies to shutter facilities, curtail operations, or even entirely discontinue services. These difficulties are not necessarily the product of any labor shortage in the area, however — hundreds of Missourians pour across the Mississippi River every day to work for the Illinois government, where jobs in the unionized public sector yield considerably higher wages.