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Amazon “unlawfully disciplined and terminated” a worker who organized walkouts protesting the company’s return-to-work directives, The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has claimed.
The NLRB filed the complaint against the e-commerce giant in Seattle, alleging the former staffer was subject to retaliation.
In February 2023, Amazon announced a new return-to-office (RTO) policy, mandating employees to spend at least three days per week on-site. Prior to the directive, individual teams were free to decide how often their employees would attend the office.
The policy sparked a significant backlash from Amazon employees, with several thousand signing petitions and eventually staging a walkout later in 2023.
Now the NLRB has accused Amazon of having “interrogated” one employee about the protests, including their role in “encouraging employees “to be angry at Amazon”,” and how they “got so many people to attend the walkout.”
According to the complaint, which focuses on one employee in particular, Amazon placed the individual on a performance improvement plan after their role in orchestrating the walk-out.
The NLRB then alleges Amazon “offered a severance payment of nine weeks’ salary if the employee signed a severance agreement and global release in exchange for their resignation.”
Amazon’s performance improvement plan was described by The Seattle Times last year as “known for being impossible to escape.”
An Amazon spokesperson, speaking to The Verge, refutes the complaint.
“The facts of this situation are clear and have nothing to do with whether this former employee opposed our return-to-office guidance,” they state.
“She consistently underperformed over a period of nearly a year and repeatedly failed to deliver on projects she was assigned. Despite extensive support and coaching, the former employee was unable to improve her performance and chose to leave the company,” the statement concludes.
However, the NLRB says the performance improvement plan and severance offer amounted to retaliation as it sought to discourage “protected, concerted activities.”
Protected concerted activity is a term used in labor law that, under the National Labor Relations Act, allows employees to take actions to improve their working conditions with protection from employer interference or retaliation.
The Verge says NLRB’s legal team are pursuing reimbursement for the “financial harms” the employee suffered as a result of the alleged interrogation and retaliation.
They are also seeking a letter of apology from Amazon to the employee and a “Notice to Employees” with unspecified contents to be physically and electronically distributed to Amazon workers across the US and read by an Amazon spokesperson at a recorded videoconference.
An initial hearing with an NLRB Administrative Law Judge has been scheduled in Seattle on February 4th, 2025, provided no settlement is reached sooner.
