[HN Gopher] Federal court requires Amazon to stop firing employe...
___________________________________________________________________
Federal court requires Amazon to stop firing employees for
protected activities
Author : Terretta
Score : 208 points
Date : 2022-12-05 18:03 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nlrb.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nlrb.gov)
| olliej wrote:
| If they're already breaking the law by firing people, why would
| an order to obey the law impact anything? Obeying the law is
| already a requirement?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Without an injunction, the default remedy to civil matters are
| damages. With an injunction the action can be compelled or
| prohibited and failure is now subject to _criminal_ penalty.
|
| It is one thing to be a manager at a company getting caught
| with something and incurring a fine or pay-off a plaintiff. It
| is another to be held criminally liable. I expect the latter to
| have much more incentive for compliance.
| msla wrote:
| "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, but now let him
| enforce it."
|
| I'll believe this is more than words when I see something happen
| to Amazon.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| I'm clearly not a lawyer or expert in labor laws, but why a
| "cease and desist" vs actually initiating legal proceedings
| against the company?
|
| Is it a good-faith action to allow Amazon to change their
| behavior before an eventual suit is filed?
|
| I had thought that we had laws preventing exactly what Amazon is
| being asked to stop doing. Wouldn't breaking those laws be
| grounds for legal proceedings?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| An injunction is a legal command, not a demand. This might be
| semantically dubious. But the former is the judiciary saying,
| "thou shalt cease and desist." While the latter is a party
| saying "stop that or I'll make life very difficult for us
| both."
| paxys wrote:
| Legal proceedings take a while to initiate and even longer
| (months/years) to conclude. Injunctions are more "do this
| immediately or be held in contempt of court".
| bwestergard wrote:
| This is not just an "actual legal preceding", it is the
| conclusion of an actual legal preceding: an injunction.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| The article says "The injunction was issued based on a
| petition for Section 10(j) injunctive relief filed by Kathy
| Drew King, former Regional Director of Region 29 of the
| National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)."
|
| I had missed this. I guess the NLRB asked for this
| injunction.
|
| I'm still not clear on what if anything changes here though.
|
| Again, to me this "injunction" is like a parent saying "don't
| do that again...or else!"
|
| What happens if they don't?
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>What happens if they don't?
|
| We let companies get away with alot, but flagrant
| violations of court orders is one of the few things that
| will land an executive in a cell
| Spoom wrote:
| Do you have examples of executives being jailed for NLRB
| notice / consent decree violations?
| phpisthebest wrote:
| This is not a NLRB notice / consent decree, this is a
| court order injunctions so the better question would be
| "Do you have examples of executives being jailed of
| violations of court orders"
|
| which is yes of course there are examples of that
| TylerE wrote:
| Name some? Even the Enron guys didn't go to jail
| (mostly).
| lovich wrote:
| Not the poster you asked but there's been a few.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/business/16jail.html
| ummonk wrote:
| Wow did not expect the appearance by Sonia Sotomayor at
| the end.
| Spoom wrote:
| > ...The injunction also directs Amazon to post,
| distribute, and read the Court's order to employees at
| the Employer's Staten Island facility ("JFK8").
|
| But sure, to the wording of the order, they just have to
| post / distribute / read the order, and:
|
| > ...cease and desist from discharging employees, and
| from engaging in any like or related conduct, in
| retaliation for employees engaging in protected
| activities...
|
| So what's to prevent Amazon from saying, "we haven't
| broken the law so far and will continue to not do so,"
| while maintaining business as usual in terms of how they
| respond to unionization attempts?
|
| If anything, what concrete changes are the court
| requiring here?
| dwattttt wrote:
| The first quote implies there's more things the
| injunction requires. Your second quote, the content of
| the the cease and desist clause, is covered by the
| injunction.
|
| More of the quoted sentence:
|
| > ... issued a Section 10(j) injunction against
| Amazon.com Services LLC directing Amazon to cease and
| desist from discharging employees, and from engaging in
| any like or related conduct, in retaliation for employees
| engaging in protected activities
| ethbr0 wrote:
| To elaborate, a lot of a legal case is determining how an
| actual situation _should_ be matched to a law.
|
| An injunction essentially says: the court has good reason
| to presume they match in this way, ergo don't do X, Y,
| and Z while the case proceeds.
|
| If you then do X, Y, or Z, you have directly defied a
| court order, which is itself illegal.
|
| So the difference is between being able to construct a
| defense around "We didn't think what we were doing was
| illegal" (the original case) vs "We did that thing you
| told us was illegal while the case proceeds" (violating
| an injunction). Obviously, it's a lot harder to win a
| case on the latter.
| [deleted]
| ISL wrote:
| Contempt of court charges and a referral to DoJ?
| a1369209993 wrote:
| IIUC, the situation is roughly:
|
| Amazon: We claim that this thing we're (allegedly) doing is
| technically _not_ illegal.
|
| Court: Fine, you can argue that as a defence, but until you
| actually _win_ the case, you 're ordered to stop doing it
| _anyway_ , on pain of comtempt of court regardless of whether
| the thing itself is technically legal.
|
| If Amazon were a person, this would be somewhat unfair for
| SLAPP reasons, but it's not since it's a croporation, so this
| is fine and reasonable.
| elil17 wrote:
| I think the confusing here is between a "cease and desist
| letter," which is a letter can anyone to anyone else warning
| them that you'll sue them if they don't stop doing something,
| and an "injunction to cease and desist". An injunction is a
| temporary court ruling made on an urgent matter. The NLRB had
| to show the court that workers would be permanently harmed if
| they waited till the full lawsuit was over to force Amazon to
| stop. Cease and desist just means stop, so you can read this as
| an injunction to stop firing workers for protesting unsafe
| working conditions.
|
| Edit: I missed that this was about safety protests, not
| unionization.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Now do the same for the constructive dismissals of Starbucks
| union organizers.
| [deleted]
| throwntoday wrote:
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I never considered the two in such light as I deem them
| completely separate issues, in law and morally. I suppose I'm
| one of those? I believe it's illegal to fire people for
| attempting to unionize, and I don't believe there's a law
| that prohibits social networks from banning arbitrarily (in
| addition, I suppose, to the law-required bans).
|
| Should there be? Maybe! That'd be a very interesting separate
| discussion :)
| msla wrote:
| I wonder what the overlap is between people who hate
| Starbucks for shitting on unions and people who want to be
| able to get other people fired over Twitter outrage. Really,
| the whole reason outrage mobs can get companies to fire
| people is because the people who were fired don't have a
| strong enough union.
|
| And, no, a union which caves to social media pressure isn't
| strong.
| cycomanic wrote:
| Counter question, I wonder what is the intersection who
| believes that it's ok that protestors are violently thrown
| out of Trump rallies, but think it's a violation of free
| speech if Twitter bans a post.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think a better analogy is whether Starbucks is allowed to
| kick customers off of their private property. Last time I
| checked they are.
| croes wrote:
| There is a difference between a free user and a paid employee
| wmeredith wrote:
| It's probably quite large, as it would include those who
| support the rule of law.
| jrockway wrote:
| Firing people for organizing a union is explicitly encoded in
| law as being illegal. Refusing to publish people's content on
| your website is covered by no such law; instead, there are
| laws to the contrary.
| throwntoday wrote:
| If it's illegal how do corporations get away with it?
| Genuine question.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| People and companies get away with illegal stuff until /
| unless caught, prosecuted and punished.
|
| You indicate its a genuine question, but I feel you'd
| have to have just landed on this planet for that to be
| the case. In kindergarten there are rules, and not
| everybody who doesn't follow them gets caught. Or if you
| have siblings, surely you've noticed they would sometimes
| get away with stuff - unfairly and agonizingly so. And
| onward it goes with life.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| This is poetic, well put.
| throwntoday wrote:
| I don't get the hostility. It was a genuine question
| because my assumption is any sufficiently large
| corporation is aware of the legal implications, and are a
| bigger target for litigation.
|
| I know that corporations break laws, there's no need to
| be flippant.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Same way I was able to jaywalk yesterday - lack of
| enforcement.
| a4isms wrote:
| Genuine answer:
|
| > _Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to
| wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but
| does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds
| but does not protect._
|
| --Frank Wilhoit
|
| In a conservative society where capitalism has captured
| government, corporations are an in-group, and employees
| are an out-group.
| klyrs wrote:
| What you perceive as a contradiction is non-absolutism with
| regards to the freedom of association. In the collision of
| two rights, balance is found in nuanced consideration of the
| particulars of a situation. Here, you're contrasting the
| rights of workers with the rights of shitposters.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you meant the store closings in Seattle, even if Starbucks
| is acting in bad faith, it is such a horrible situation with
| how the city council and SPD are handing and responding to
| crime that it would be impossible to prove anything in court.
| simfree wrote:
| It's gotten so much worse since Bruce Harrell has gotten into
| office. Wild to see the Seattle Chamber acting like he is
| making things better in Downtown when 2 blocks down the hill
| from City Hall 7-Eleven closed up shop due to all the
| tweakers.
|
| Go towards Pioneer Square and the London Plane Coffee Shop
| there is closing permanently this month, leaving that block
| of Occidental mostly devoid of foot traffic.
| skorpeon87 wrote:
| > _Wild to see the Seattle Chamber acting like he is making
| things better in Downtown when 2 blocks down the hill from
| City Hall 7-Eleven closed up shop due to all the tweakers._
|
| This apparent contradiction is easy to explain.
|
| Forcing people into rehab is considered inhumane. Tweakers
| are deemed to be victims of society, and therefore the
| 'correct' solution is to have more tolerance for tweakers.
| More tweakers out on the street is evidence that the
| tweakers feel tolerated, which must mean that it's working.
|
| This won't change until you vote out the local politicians
| who believe these premises: that forcing people into rehab
| is inhumane. That tweakers are victims of society's
| intolerance, and that tweakers wouldn't be a problem if we
| had more tolerance for them.
| simfree wrote:
| You have me laughing my ass off right now. I know one
| person who is in involuntary detox currently (then onto
| court ordered rehab). The King County Municipal Court is
| dishing these out left and right, but that still doesn't
| prevent relapse 6 months after getting out of rehab.
|
| Then we get all the suburbs dumping their druggies in
| Pioneer Square and Chinatown. It's a neverending pipeline
| of addicts the Eastside and south end is dumping on us.
|
| We need to start tracking all non-city LEOs entering
| Seattle and turn them around if they are giving courtesy
| rides. Called 911 on one from Bothell yesterday and
| started filming the occupant and cop. They raced off
| right quick but I still filed a complaint with Bothell
| PD.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Yes, that famously effective policy of involuntary rehab.
|
| Rehab isn't magic - it requires you to really, really,
| really not want to use drugs anymore.
| munificent wrote:
| It's been much better here in Ballard. I can actually use
| the bike lanes on 8th Ave. again.
| simfree wrote:
| Hasn't the Ballard Alliance been employing ambassadors
| similar to the Downtown Ambassadors to defend the blocks
| (pick up trash, encourage homeless to not sleep on
| defended blocks, etc)?
|
| IIRC their grants and ability to tax local businesses
| came through under Jenny Durkan's reign, same for the
| Uptown Alliance covering Queen Anne and Belltown. Jenny
| Durkan's reign of rainbow colored tear gas was truly
| awful, but this (and further roads investments) were
| bright spots.
| themitigating wrote:
| "It's gotten so much worse since Bruce Harrell has gotten
| into office."
|
| Bruce Harrell was sworn in at the start of 2022. Here's the
| crime statisitic from the SAPD
|
| Type,2022,2021, year over year change %
|
| Homicide 51,51 0.0%
|
| Rape 215,205 4.9%
|
| Robbery 2184,2053 6.4%
|
| Assault 2375,2185 8.7%
|
| Buglary 5292,6709 -21.1%
|
| MV Theft 5664,5446 4.0%
|
| Arson 273,308 -11.4%
|
| Larceny Theft 31814,28459 11.8%
|
| I see mixed results but more importantly for the specific
| type of crime that has gone up it's been mostly single
| digit year over year.
|
| https://www.sanfranciscopolice.org/stay-safe/crime-
| data/crim...
| kelnos wrote:
| Your link goes to San Francisco crime statistics... I
| thought this thread was talking about Seattle?
| themitigating wrote:
| Wouldn't you just have to show that stores located in areas
| with equal or higher crime rates were not shut down?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That would be weak evidence at best.
|
| Even so, there is nothing illegal about shutting down a
| store because you would rather have no store than work with
| a union.
| themitigating wrote:
| Why? Maybe I should add that you need to take into sales
| and costs
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| "You broke the law. As punishment, we're going to tell you not to
| break the law anymore."
|
| That'll teach 'em.
| [deleted]
| elil17 wrote:
| It's a temporary order to get them to stop while the lawsuit
| continues. They'll probably be fined, but that could take a
| long time to work out.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| The fine will be peanuts compared to the monetary value of
| avoiding a union
| elil17 wrote:
| Yeah, most of these fines are nothing. It's shameful.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There's a lot of misinformation in this thread. As far as I can
| tell, the injunction has nothing to do with unionization
| activities, but pertains to covid working condition protest.
|
| While us labor law does protect unionization efforts, it also
| protects other forms of worker protest outside of the scope of
| unionization.
|
| Additionally, it is an injunction. This is by definition a order
| to stop doing something prior to the completion of the complete
| court case. The final Court decision could come with penalties,
| or even be decided in Amazon's favor
| talkingtab wrote:
| I suspect the reason for this is that it postpones the need to
| resolve the action before providing relief to the workers.
| Without this notice, Amazon could continue to to illegally fire
| people and eventually might have to pay a price. With an
| injunction and a threat of contempt the stakes for Amazon to do
| that are much much higher. Contempt it not something you want to
| mess with either as a lawyer or as an entity. This basically says
| "if you continue to fire people and we find (now or later) that
| you have done so illegally you will be in contempt.
|
| Probably the issue for Amazon is whether they will be able to
| successfully argue that they had no idea what they were doing was
| illegal. I'm unclear on what will happen to a lawyer (if
| anything) for knowingly participating in contempt. _Not a lawyer
| and not a legal expert so just guessing._
| yellow_lead wrote:
| What happens when a company is found to be in contempt of
| court?
| [deleted]
| simfree wrote:
| Ideally the company's officers would be held in contempt and
| serve time, but realistically it will just be a monetary fine
| and no real justice will be had for the employees lives who
| have been disrupted.
| Terretta wrote:
| From actual order linked from article:
|
| _On November 18, 2022, Judge Diane Gujarati of the United States
| District Court for the District of Eastern New York issued a
| Section 10(j) injunction against Amazon.com Services LLC
| directing Amazon to cease and desist from discharging employees,
| and from engaging in any like or related conduct, in retaliation
| for employees engaging in protected activities. The injunction
| also directs Amazon to post, distribute, and read the Court's
| order to employees at the Employer's Staten Island facility
| ("JFK8")._
|
| https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-region-29...
| dang wrote:
| We've changed the url to that from
| https://labor411.org/411-blog/federal-judge-orders-amazon-
| to..., which copies it.
|
| " _Please submit the original source. If a post reports on
| something found on another site, submit the latter._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| EarthIsHome wrote:
| "Now let the court enforce it." -Andrew Jackson
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Andrew Jackson was basically Joe Arpaio crossed with Nixon.
|
| Below is a comprehensive description of how the US removed
| Indian's from their land. Andrew Jackson plays a prominent
| role.
|
| They Were Just in the Way | Indian Removal
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5P6vJs1jmY
| miguelazo wrote:
| Sounds like substantial fines are in order.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Not sure if there's any criminal case here, but there _should
| be_. Fines, even "substantial fines", never seem to work.
| When executives start getting perp-walked then things will
| change.
| jjk166 wrote:
| The cost of a fall guy to sit in prison for a few years
| could be orders of magnitude less than the damages a civil
| case could cost.
| anonymousab wrote:
| Ideally it would be both, and the fall guy would be
| senior leadership and include the CEO by default.
|
| Quite frankly, imprisoning the company is the next step -
| no access to, control or operation of funds, assets or
| company systems for the duration of imprisonment. It
| should be as much of a threat to a company's wellbeing as
| it is to the average man.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The _current_ executive is likely to have a different take.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Unclear....he just threw some of his bread and butter people
| (the unionized rail workers) under the bus(or train).
| thrill wrote:
| It's different when it hurts _his_ constituancy.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| No, he has been all over the place. The chips act, the
| student loan forgiveness(pending), the pro union EV moves
| pissed off his rich buddies but gave some crumbs to the
| people who voted for him.
| tyre wrote:
| and was extraordinarily hesitant to do so.
|
| The supply chains are a mess as it is, the US can't stomach
| a rail shutdown this winter, and the votes aren't there to
| pass sick leave.
|
| Biden isn't a hypocrite; he's never been a union
| absolutist.
| wmeredith wrote:
| This is such a non-excuse for forcing the Unions to work.
| The fact that US can't afford a rail shutdown could just
| as quickly be used to say that the railroad companies
| have to give the union what they want to avert a
| shutdown, but it went the other way ... Because you know,
| oligarchy.
|
| If their service is so essential, they should be granted
| some sick days.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The democrats did say that. They voted for the sick leave
| bill. Republicans blocked it with the filibuster.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| And furthermore, there are a lot of working-class voters
| who depend on jobs that would be impacted by a rail
| strike.
|
| _And_ the deal the unions were forced to accept was one
| brokered by the White House after the unions and rail
| companies couldn 't come to agreement. So presumably more
| than the rail companies would have been willing to settle
| on, on their own.
|
| So in terms of voters pissed off vs voters pleased, he
| probably comes out ahead on this one.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The overwhelming sentiment in my friend group, including
| some blue-collar types who might not work for a while if
| there's a rail shutdown, was "please, strike--we can take
| it". We were all shocked to find out how poorly rail
| workers are treated. Everyone was _very_ unhappy with
| Congress and Biden screwing them over.
|
| But I may be in a bubble.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| They'll be signing a different tune when there's a
| blackout on christmas because the coal plant couldn't get
| its coal.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think everyone supports key industries striking, until
| they figure out how many other industries depend on them.
|
| And rail is pretty unique in terms of transport cost :
| weight. There is no substitute.
|
| On the one hand, I'm not in favor of any industry being
| required to work. On the other, I do recognize critical
| industries have responsibilities as well as rights.
|
| A 14% raise w/ back pay + 24% raises (in total over 5
| years) + no copay or deductible increases (or changes to
| healthcare for 5 years) isn't nothing.
|
| In general, they face the same issue airlines do: their
| primary cost and schedule (aka revenue) limiter is
| skilled labor. So they try to limit that by maximizing
| utilization of a minimal number of employees.
|
| It looks like in the US Congress controls railroad labor
| rules directly via Hours of Service laws [0], so could
| hypothetically create better scheduling for life events
| by altering the requirements (e.g. larger blocks of time,
| at home, in-between shifts) without railroad companies'
| involvement.
|
| [0] https://railroads.dot.gov/legislation-
| regulations/current-in...
| wmeredith wrote:
| Biden did sign the bill, which sucks. But the only way it
| got to his desk was that 42 Republican Senators and 1
| Democratic Senator (Manchin) voted for it. The President is
| not a king. POTUS gets too much credit and too much blame
| for things like this.
| amazon_illegal wrote:
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(page generated 2022-12-05 23:00 UTC)