TECHNOLOGY

Amazon calls cops, fires workers in attempts to stop unionization nationwide

As Amazon prepares to argue that the union victory in Staten Island should be overturned, employees around the country are accusing the company of using illegal anti-union tactics

By Caroline O'Donovan
Updated June 13, 2022 at 3:22 p.m. EDT | Published June 13, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Matt Litrell, a 22-year-old Amazon employee, was distributing union fliers outside the warehouse where he works this month when the cops showed up.

An Amazon manager had called the sheriff’s office in Campbellsville, Ky., that afternoon to report that protesters trying to start a union were trespassing on company property. While the officers eventually determined that Litrell wasn’t on Amazon’s property and left, Litrell plans to add the incident to the illegal-intimidation charge he filed with the National Labor Relations Board in May.

“We were completely within our rights to be there,” Litrell told The Washington Post. But he said that didn’t stop a low-level manager from confronting him later to ask, “ ‘How’s the revolution going?’ ”

Employees at Amazon facilities around the country whose union hopes were buoyed by the labor victory at a warehouse in Staten Island in April say in labor board filings and interviews that the company has been calling police, firing workers and generally cracking down on labor organizing since that historic win. Amazon has been accused of illegally firing workers in Chicago, New York and Ohio, calling the police on workers in Kentucky and New York, and retaliating against workers in New York and Pennsylvania, in what workers say is an escalation of long-running union-busting activities by the company.

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By Caroline O'Donovan
Caroline O'Donovan covers Amazon for the tech team. Before joining The Washington Post, she covered tech and labor for BuzzFeed News. Twitter https://twitter.com/ceodonovan