🔥 A Management Shake-Up On Staten Island

More than half a dozen senior managers at Amazon's JFK8 fulfillment warehouse in Staten Island were abruptly fired this week — about a month after the warehouse's employees voted to unionize. According to the New York Times, the firings occurred outside the company's standard review cycle, and some of the managers had even received positive reviews recently, leading many to believe the firings were in direct response to the workers' unionization victory.

• “Part of our culture at Amazon is to continually improve, and we believe it’s important to take time to review whether or not we’re doing the best we could be for our team,” an Amazon spokesperson said of the firings.

• The Times reports that the managers may have been involved in anti-union efforts on the part of Amazon and thus were fired. Amazon has fired several other non-management employees at the warehouse in recent weeks, but some filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board to be reinstated at their job. 

A National Platform

President Biden met with Christian Smalls, the organizer of the Amazon Labor Union at JFK8, along with other union activists to highlight their efforts, reports Engadget. “These folks are inspiring a movement of workers across the country to fight for the pay and benefits they deserve,” the President tweeted. Smalls then appeared before the US Senate Budget Committee to call for an end to federal contracts with Amazon so long as they continue illegal union-busting activities, says CNBC.

The Verdict

For a company that’s one of the biggest private employers in the United States, Amazon’s handling of the burgeoning union within its ranks has been remarkably petty and antagonistic. Of course, that might be one of the reasons for their extremely high employee turnover rate.