Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor laws when he remarked in recent interviews that employees could be negatively affected by unions, a federal labor agency said.
In a complaint late Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board pointed to comments Jassy made in media interviews.
Jassy said that if employees were to vote in a union, they may be less empowered in the workplace and things would become “much slower” and “more bureaucratic.”
“I also think people are better off having direct connections with their managers,” Jassy said. “You know, you think about work differently. You have relationships that are different.”
He echoed those comments in the Bloomberg interview, saying workers would be “better off without a union.”
Jassy’s comments resulted in him “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed” in the U.S. National Labor Relations Act, said Ronald Hooks, regional director of the NLRB’s Seattle office, in the complaint.
Amazon must respond to the NLRB complaint by Nov. 8, and the office has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 7. The complaint also requests that Amazon mail and email workers a notice informing them of their labour rights.
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel gave the following statement: “These allegations are completely without merit, and the comments in question are clearly protected by express language of the National Labor Relations Act and decades of NLRB precedent.”
AMZN shares docked $3.02, or 2.6%, striding toward noon EDT at $112.64.