Amazon Agrees to Pay Back Wages to Two Employees Who Claimed They Were Illegally Fired for Organizing

As part of a settlement agreement , Amazon will becompelled to payan unspecified amount in back wages to two former workers who claimed they were below the belt fired from the company in retaliation for workplace activism .

The former employee in dubiousness , Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa , filed an NLRB complaint last October alleging that Amazon had violate Union labor law by firing them “ establish on discriminatory enforcement of its non - solicitation and communication policies , ” which prevent employee from talk over Amazon ’s business organisation practice without pre - approval from a manager . As part of the colonization , issued at a virtual hearing on Wednesday by NLRB Administrative Law Judge John Giannopoulos , Amazon will also have to “ post a notice to all of its tech and storage warehouse workers nationwide that Amazon ca n’t can workers for machinate and exercising their right field , ” Cunningham and Costasaid in a statement .

“ Tech proletarian stand up up together have huge power to move the biggest corporations in the world , ” they write . “ Everything we love is menace by mood chaos . Workers at every company necessitate to be standing up for each other and the humans , together . Now is the metre to be our best , bravest selves . ”

Photo: Sean Gallup / Staff (Getty Images)

Prior to their termination in April 2020 , Cunningham and Costa , both user experience graphic designer who had work at the caller ’s Seattle headquarters for 15 years , had been openly vital of Amazon ’s environmental step . finally , as an extension of their conviction , they formed a workplace protagonism group scream Amazon Employees for Climate Justice in 2018 so that employees could leverage their collective power to call upon the party to make changes to its climate policies . Much to Amazon ’s dismay , the mathematical group becamemassively democratic , collect more than 8,700 employee appendage and compelling more than 1,500 to take the air off the job as part of interconnected protests against Amazon ’s clime policies .

As the pandemic dullard down on the U.S. , Cunningham and Costa later transmit their activism into feat for workers ’ rights , specifically interested with Amazon ’s subpar treatment of the warehouse worker risking their animation to keep the company ’s crowded fulfillment centers running .

By agreeing to the settlement , Amazon stave off the possibleness of a protracted and very public trial — an event that was particularly likely given the story of national examination the termination had already received . Nine Democratic senator , including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts , Bernie Sanders of Vermont , and Cory Booker of New Jersey , had called upon Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to reply to the firings last May , and Tim Bray , a former vice president at Amazon , had resigned in protestation , say that continuing at his post would have meant “ signing off on military action I despised . ”

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