Amazon Says It Has a First Amendment Right to Union Bust
44 comments
·October 25, 2024rootusrootus
I feel like we should make civil rights for individuals as expansive as possible, but it would be perfectly okay to put much tighter limits on what kind of free speech protection a corporation gets.
I also do not see this as a first amendment issue anyway. Amazon can say anything they want, but when they force employees to listen to it, that is very different.
dhd415
There are certainly legitimate concerns about the influence of Amazon and other large corporations, but the solution is not so simple as what you suggest. Corporations are associations of people, so you are advocating for civil rights for individuals up until they associate with others and act or speak collectively. That would be radically detrimental to the meaning of civil rights.
BobaFloutist
What about civil rights for individuals up until they form a legal structure oriented around amassing profits and protecting the individuals from liability?
An argument could be made to have different rules for benefit corporations and non-profit corporations as opposed to traditional for-profit corporations.
atmavatar
Corporations do not exist to facilitate collective advocacy. There is zero reason to believe that the views of the C-suite or board of directors for a corporation represent the views of a majority, significant minority, or even any of its employees.
Pretending like they are a vehicle for collective speech merely amplifies the speech of the owners at the (potential) expense of the employees. Perpetuating the facade is sadly both another symptom and a furtherance of the corrupting influence of money in our politics.
solidninja
Unless of course the only corporations allowed to exercise free speech rights were collectives of workers :)
andrewmcwatters
This concept muddies the waters, and as a society we should be keen to identify concepts that do just that.
It’s simple enough to draw the line at registered organizations. These entities after all are afforded distinct legal privileges.
dhd415
Organizations such as the ACLU and the American Red Cross are registered organizations and I doubt you'd advocate for restricting or redefining their civil rights. Perhaps you'd draw the line at for-profit organizations, but that doesn't make it better. Should Ben & Jerry's or Patagonia or other corporations with notable positions on social issues not enjoy the protection of civil rights from those who oppose them?
The bottom line is that any restriction or redefinition of civil rights is fraught with negative unintended consequences. It should be an option chosen with extreme care.
twoodfin
Registered organizations like the New York Times Company?
ethagknight
How is it different? The first amendment right, im guessing, extends to the employees making the union-busting speech. Can you mandate that an employee listen to safety training, where non-compliance means having your contractural employment terminated?
To the other absurd arguments about "give me your wallet" as comparable free speech, come on. These are people demanding pay from an employer but wanting to play by different rules not mandated by the US Govt, not somebody out there tilling their own field seeking racketeering protection from an ogre.
rootusrootus
Defining it legally would require careful consideration, but there is an obvious intuitive difference between telling employees unions are bad and mandating that they watch safety training.
The latter at least has legitimate business value as well as value for the employee themselves. The former benefits only the corporation, at the expense of the employees. Safety training is collectively good, union busting is adversarial.
It should not be impossible to make this a legal distinction.
ethagknight
It is very interesting to watch this play out, because of course the DSPs are effectively extensions of Amazon.
The complaint advocates that Unions cannot even be discussed by Amazon with its employees? But the unions, conversely, do have the right to discuss with Amazon employees?
This section is wild. NLRB complaint mandates a false testimony of laid-off workers. Whether or not that constitutes some form of fraud, it is extremely unethical.
>>The NLRB complaint also seeks an order requiring that Amazon publicly post the NLRB explanation of employee rights for one year; provide laid-off workers with a “neutral letter of reference” that says their performance was “satisfactory” and does not mention “the circumstances surrounding their termination of employment”;
93po
I feel like all of this would be solved if we just made some super simple laws for mandatory time off, mandatory living wages, universal healthcare, mandatory parental leave, and limits on overtime. Other countries do this just fine to great results. At that point my company say whatever dumb shit it wants to, they're still gonna be forced to pay me a livable wage and let me take time off and let me take care of my health and family.
oohlolly
I don’t know why we legally and socially accept the existence of legal rights for euphemisms at all.
If I have no obligation to ramble Christian catechisms; political speech of the past, why 1900s economic catechisms? Jeff Bezos and the like are just people. They aren’t concepts.
Superhero addicted minds looking up in the sky …it’s dick shaped rocket man! Goooo that guy!
andrewmg
What a tendentious headline. Of course an employer has the right to hold an information session for its employees and convey its views. The Supreme Court held in 1941 that nothing in the National Labor Relations Act prohibits an employer "from expressing its view on labor policies or problems" unless the employer's speech "in connection with other circumstances [amounts] to coercion within the meaning of the Act." NLRB v. Virginia Elec. & Power Co., 314 U.S. 469, 477.
Subsequently, in 1947 Congress enacted an express speech protection in NLRA § 8(c): "The expressing of any views, argument, or opinion, or the dissemination thereof, whether in written, printed, graphic, or visual form, shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice under any of the provisions of this subchapter, if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit."
That provision "implements the First Amendment," NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U.S. 575, 617 (1969). It also manifested a "congressional intent to encourage free debate on issues dividing labor and management." Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U.S. 53, 62 (1966).
So, yes, it has been well established for nearly as long as we've had federal labor law that employers can tell their employees why they think unionization is a bad idea. The First Amendment guarantees them that right, and Congress also guaranteed it by statute. And those rights obviously apply to statements like (from the article) "Unions make money by collecting dues from their members." One can certainly disagree with such a message, but the notion (asserted by a union attorney quoted in the article) that speech protections don't apply to employer speech is bonkers.
ilyagr
It's one thing to say these things. I'm sure Amazon has a website somewhere saying such things, for anybody who wants to read them, that's fine. It's another to obligate people to listen or to threaten them, explicitly or implicitly, about things you might do if they vote a certain way.
Illustrating this difference is why I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947141.
andrewmg
They're employees. The employer pays them for their time and can demand that they attend whatever activities the employer chooses, from work training sessions to anti-harassment training sessions to sessions talking about corporate culture to sessions expressing the employer's views on topics like unionization.
If you want, you can hire someone to listen to you talk 8 hours a day on whatever topic you choose--there's no law against it.
pksebben
> whatever activities the employer chooses
This is wrong. Your employer cannot ask you to engage in things that compromise your safety or otherwise illegally put you in harms way.
The thing at question here, is whether the implicit threat of job loss constitutes such a case. I would argue it absolutely does - especially for those at the bottom of the income ladder (like amazon workers). This is an existential threat to coerce a behavior.
stevenAthompson
You have a fair point, but also consider the large imbalance of power here.
On one side you have a mega-corporation that can take away the employees ability to eat, live indoors, or receive required healthcare. On the other you have Joe Six-pack who could possibly mildly inconvenience his employer, at worst.
Granting the mega-corp the ability to speak it's mind, without also guaranteeing Joe a few rights in return is just moving that threat from explicit to implicit.
stevenAthompson
Is there any similar guarantee that an employee can respond by sharing their contrary opinion without consequences? If not this seems less like freedom of speech and more like an implied threat.
fny
Headline is misleading. Amazon is claiming it has a First Amendment Right not to disseminate NLRB materials.
"The NLRB complaint also seeks an order requiring that Amazon publicly post the NLRB explanation of employee rights for one year; provide laid-off workers with a “neutral letter of reference” that says their performance was “satisfactory” and does not mention “the circumstances surrounding their termination of employment”; permit the NLRB to train management on unfair labor practices; and provide the regional board director with written proof of compliance."
I'm sympathetic to unions, but its pretty obvious why a First Amendment argument tracks.
throwup238
How is this any different to all the OSHA safety and employee rights posters that state and federal governments require employers to put up? How about those health code signs telling employees to wash their hands or the restaurant letter grades?
If their argument tracks what’s the point of even having regulatory agencies. Anything they order their industry to do will be against either freedom of speech or of association.
fny
I grant that "explanation of employee rights for one year" will likely fail as an argument since (I assume) that signage meets the standard of content-neutrality.[0] However, forcing an employer to provide a neutral letter of reference which does not mention the circumstances of termination seems like a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
[0]: """ Content-neutral “time, place and manner” regulations of a public forum are valid if they are narrowly tailored to serve a substantial government interest, and they leave open ample alternative means for communicating the same information """ https://www.meyersnave.com/wp-content/uploads/attorneys/Sign...
Terr_
> Headline is misleading. Amazon is claiming it has a First Amendment Right not to disseminate NLRB materials.
Amazon has made multiple claims--not just that one--and the headline is referring to the group.
In any case, that claim is weak because there's no confusion of authorship or endorsement, employees can tell that the company is delivering something on the behalf of someone else. (Ironically, It's also what the company is known for generally.)
I wonder what would happen if Amazon refused to print out W-2 tax forms and made the same argument.
hintymad
A related question: a union in a private business is balanced the company's financial health and the risk of bankruptcy. What about union in a government? The government won't go under, at least very unlikely. So, the union can just keep increasing its influence and demand. How would we balance their power?
naikrovek
If there is anything I know deeply in my bones, it’s that if there is something that is good for a huge company, it is likely bad for everyone else. The inverse is also usually true: anything that is bad for a huge company is likely good for everyone else.
The motivations of a huge company like Amazon are reliably very different than the needs of anything else. So much so that you can count on what a large company wants to be always bad for individuals or groups of individuals, including the group comprised solely of the employees of the company.
38
why is exactly why corporations should not be "people", to prevent this idiocy.
marcosdumay
That's not it.
A person can't send threats to other people either. It's not something specific to corporations.
jncfhnb
You can send threats of particular kinds
marcosdumay
Yes, but "if you form an union I'll fire you" is a kind that is explicitly forbidden.
It doesn't matter if the speech is named after a real person or not.
nine_zeros
Corporations should only be considered as "people" if the executives and shareholders can be put to jail for criminal offenses - such as supplying poison to individuals.
null
geodel
Indeed, can't wait to see teachers, firefighters, and other state and federal employees going to prison as their pension funds get invested in corporations committing crimes.
snickerbockers
Contrapositively if we can't punish corporations for breaking the law the way we punish people, then the corporations must not be people and we shouldn't endow them with all the freedoms and rights that actual people have.
Supermancho
Yes, this would be the consequence. People would stop investing in these companies, knowing the consequence.
The flip a switch send people to jail fantasy, is silly handwaving.
samatman
Corporate personhood, a legal fiction, is not relevant here.
The First Amendment in plain words protects the free speech rights of corporations, by referring to "the press". I have no opinion on what Amazon is doing, but they have a right to object to things on First Amendment grounds.
Edit: having read the blurb, there's a solid case to be made that captive-audience meetings are an illegal speech act, the same way that you aren't allowed to corner someone in an alley and say "give me your wallet".
Having First Amendment rights, which corporations do, does not give them license to violate the law through acts of free speech. It isn't the speaking which is proscribed in those cases, but the illegal act conveyed through speech.
danaris
> The First Amendment in plain words protects the free speech rights of corporations, by referring to "the press".
Amazon is not "the press". That is very clearly referring to news/journalism, not "anything any company happens to communicate".
The First Amendment protects the free speech rights of people, not companies acting outside of a journalistic context.
samatman
No. That puts the government in control of deciding who is, and is not, the press. Which is contrary to the letter and spirit of the First Amendment, which was, in fact, explicitly, written to preclude that possibility.
Your statement is also dead wrong on the face of it. https://amazonpublishing.amazon.com
danielktdoranie
[flagged]
meta_x_ai
Go Amazon! Unions are cancer to the society eventually overtaken by thugs.
exceptione
I am not sure if Bezos really planned to overtake the union, but is an excellent suggestion, mr Burns. Excellent!
By this logic, mugging somebody at gunpoint is protected by the first and second amendment. I exercised my right to free speech and to bear arms, and then they voluntarily gave me all they had.
If a citizen claims this -- ridiculous. But if a corporation or the president did it, and with the current supreme court -- who knows.
*Update:* But see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41947360, which is a more murky issue that would need some actual legal expertise to talk about. Maybe it's just an article with a misleading headline, depending on what's actually being claimed.