Union “wins” election with support from less than a third of employees, and NLRB’s inappropriate suit could have tipped the scales in the election. The Board and Congress need to examine further.

Washington, DC – The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW), composed of hundreds of organizations representing millions of businesses that employ tens of millions of workers nationwide in nearly every industry, released the following statement today in response to the election results at the Amazon warehouse facility in Staten Island, New York, where less than a third of workers supported unionization even after the NLRB tipped the scales in the union’s favor.

The following statement is attributable to CDW Chair Kristen Swearingen:

“The NLRB should be concerned that less than a third of workers at the Amazon plant who were eligible to vote in this election supported the union. Participation in the election was abysmal. The Board needs to examine why only 58% of the 8,325 eligible voters participated in the election and only about 32% (2,654) supported the union. This is not a model for long-term industrial democracy or stability. The Board needs to work on increasing voter participation and ensure that the decision to enlist a union as an exclusive representative is supported by the majority of employees.

“Congress also needs to investigate the suit filed by the NLRB’s General Counsel a week before the election to force Amazon to reinstate a worker who verbally harassed a female colleague with sexually charged and profane obscenities. The worker was fired for the outrageous and unacceptable behavior nearly two years ago, but General Counsel Abruzzo chose to file suit against the company only a week before voting in this election began. Congress needs to examine why the General Counsel chose to file a suit now. The timing is at best inappropriate and, at worst, suggests an intent to impact the outcome of the election.”

 

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About The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace

CDW is a broad-based coalition of hundreds of organizations representing hundreds of thousands of employers and millions of employees in various industries across the country concerned with a long-standing effort by some in the labor movement to make radical changes to the National Labor Relations Act without regard to the severely negative impact they would have on employees, employers, and the economy. CDW was originally formed in 2005 in opposition to the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – a bill similar to the PRO Act – that would have stripped employees of the right to secret ballots in union representation elections and allowed arbitrators to set contract terms regardless of the consequence to workers or businesses.

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