Amazon CEO Claims Workers Better Off Without A Union

In a recent interview, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that he believes that his workers are better off without a union and that the high injury rate at the company is misunderstood.

Business Insider reports that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in an interview with CNBC that he does not believe that union representation would be beneficial for the company’s employees. Jassy stated that employees have the right to decide whether they want to join a union. However, we believe they would be better off not for at least two reasons.

Jassy stated that Amazon “empowers” its employees. He also believes that unions could negatively affect a worker’s relationship to their manager. Jassy said: “[At Amazon] they see something that they can do better to help customers or themselves. They can meet in a room and decide how they can change it. Unions don’t allow for this type of empowerment. It is much more bureaucratic and takes much longer.”

In recent months, Amazon has been under scrutiny for the high number of injuries in its warehouses. The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), released a report this week showing that Amazon employees sustain injuries at a rate twice as high than other competitors.

Jassy wrote to shareholders, stating that “our injury rates are sometimes misunderstood.” Jassy stated that the company’s roles include “warehousing” and “courier” and that the injury rate of the firm is higher than that of other warehousing companies, but lower than that of delivery companies.

Jassy stated that when I started my new job, I spent a lot of time in our fulfillment centers, as well as with our safety team. I hoped there would be a magic bullet that could quickly change the numbers. “I didn’t find that.”

Breitbart News reported recently that Amazon claimed that New York union organizers gave free marijuana to workers to encourage them to vote for the union. Amazon’s objection is one of many that it raised Friday to try and overturn a vote that established the first union in the tech giant’s history.

On April 1, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), announced that a majority vote of JFK8 warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York for the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). Amazon now challenges the vote, claiming that the ALU/NLRB suppressed voter participation.

Amazon filed a Friday filing in which it challenged the ALU’s methods of winning the unionization vote. Amazon’s lawyers claim that ALU organizers distributed marijuana to workers before the vote. The NLRB “cannot condone this practice as a legitimate way of obtaining support for a labor organisation.”