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Two more union organizers fired from Amazon's Staten Island warehouse
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published May 9, 2022
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Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published May 9, 2022
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Amazon fired two more employees who were involved in unionization efforts at the company’s Staten Island compound in the last week — the latest to face termination following their involvement with the nascent Amazon Labor Union.
The moves came as the company also fired half a dozen senior managers at the JFK8 warehouse, which was seen as a reshuffling after the recent union vote, according to a report from the New York Times.
Organizers Mat Cusick and Tristan Dutchin said they were let go last week; one cited for performance issues, while another was suddenly locked out of his employee account after going on a 13-day COVID-19 leave.
“I was fired by a robot and I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Cusick, 38, who started working at the DYY6 warehouse, one of four on Amazon’s Staten Island compound, last fall. “I was on a leave and suddenly they say I’m no longer employed.”
Dutchin said he’d been pulled aside by his manager an hour before the end of his shift Saturday and told to speak with the human resources department. He said he was fired for not keeping up with company performance quotas. He said he’d received no written warnings leading up to his dismissal, which was typically how the company handled performance-based layoffs.
“I’m trying to figure out what the hell to do,” Dutchin said, who was prominently featured in news coverage around the Amazon Labor Union victory. “I am kind of stressed. I’m just taking things one day at a time."
In early April, workers at an 8,000-person warehouse known as JFK8 were catapulted into the national spotlight when they voted to form the company’s first union in the United States. A subsequent vote at the LDJ5 warehouse across the street failed to gain enough support, but organizers have since had a personal audience with President Joe Biden and testified before Congress.
Amazon is challenging the results of the JFK8 election in a legal proceeding before the National Labor Relations Board that could stall any contract negotiations for months.
Union attorney Seth Goldstein said the latest layoffs of union organizers are part of the ongoing effort by Amazon to undermine the burgeoning union.
“Their approach is, rather than meet and negotiate with the union, they’re trying to get rid of the union through unfair labor practices,” Goldstein said, adding they would huddle with the workers later Monday evening to determine legal next steps. “It’s not gonna work.”
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson declined to confirm the number of senior managers who’d been laid off but said, “we’ve spent time evaluating aspects of the operations and leadership at JFK8 and, as a result, have made some management changes.”
Nantel didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the firing of Cusick and Dutchin.
Several other union organizers have faced termination by Amazon over the two years workers have been laying the groundwork for last month’s historic union election. The Amazon Labor Union’s interim president, Chris Smalls, was fired after leading a walkout to protest the company’s COVID-19 safety protocols. The company said Smalls violated its COVID-19 isolation procedures.
Amazon fired another employee who helped lead the walkout, Gerald Bryson. Last month, an administrative judge ordered Amazon to give Bryson his job back and to pay him lost wages, though the company has indicated it’s appealing the decision and maintains Bryson was fired for cursing at another worker over a bullhorn. Organizer Daequan Smith, who’d been commuting to the Staten Island warehouse from a Bronx homeless shelter, was also fired in what the NLRB determined was illegal retaliation. That case is ongoing.
Organizers say layoffs and the regular churn of new employees are a built-in part of Amazon’s business model, and one of the issues they campaigned around. The New York Times reported the company had a 150 percent annual turnover rate — double that of similar businesses. Many organizers described workers getting suddenly fired only to be hired back weeks or months later. Union backers were pushing to have just-cause protections built into their forthcoming contract which would block that type of random layoff.
After Cusick was blocked from his employee account last week, he described two days of frantic calls to workers in call centers halfway across the world trying to understand what had happened. Nearly 48 hours later, he got an automated email telling him he’d been fired.
“This letter confirms the date of your voluntary resignation due to job abandonment,” the letter, a copy of which was provided to Gothamist, read. He was still trying to figure out how to appeal the decision as of Monday.
“Have you ever read Kafka?” Cusick joked. “It’s not a humane system.”
Tagged
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amazon
labor
Gwynne Hogan
Gwynne Hogan is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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