Amazon says in a federal lawsuit that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional

Amazon is challenging the structure of the National Labor Relations Board in a lawsuit that also accuses the agency of improperly influencing the outcome of a union election at a company warehouse more than two years ago.

The complaint, filed Thursday at a federal court in San Antonio, mirrors legal arguments the tech giant made in front of the agency earlier this year after NLRB prosecutors accused the company of maintaining policies that made it challenging for workers to organize and retaliating against some who did so.

In the new legal filing, attorneys for Amazon pointed back to a lawsuit the agency filed against the company in March 2022, roughly a week before voting for a union election was set to begin at a company warehouse in the New York borough of Staten Island.

Amazon views the agency’s lawsuit, which sought to force the company to give a union organizer his job back, as improperly influencing the outcome of the election. The company has also cited the action as one of its objections to the historic election, where workers voted in favor of union representation for the first time in the U.S.

Last month, the NLRB’s board denied Amazon’s appeal to review its objections, closing off any options for the company to get the election results overturned within the agency.

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In its new complaint, Amazon said the four NLRB board members who authorized the injunction were later judges reviewing the objections that came before them. It argued that structure was unconstitutional because board members are shielded from removal by the president, violates Amazon’s due process rights as well as right to a jury trial.

Other companies, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Trader Joe’s, have also challenged the structure of the agency in pending lawsuits or administrative cases. Kayla Blado, spokesperson for the NLRB General Counsel noted that while big companies have sought to challenge the NLRB, the Supreme Court in 1937 upheld the agency’s constitutionality.

“While the current challenges require the NLRB to expend scarce resources defending against them, we’ve seen that the results of these kinds of challenges is ultimately a delay in justice, but that ultimately justice does prevail,” Blado said.

Earlier this year, NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said at an event that the challenges were intended to prevent the agency from enforcing labor laws as companies “divert attention away from the fact that they’re actually law-breakers.”

Amazon is asking the court to issue an order that stops the agency from pursuing “unconstitutional” administrative proceedings against the company as the case plays out.