The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has filed a complaint on behalf of a former Amazon worker alleging that the company’s nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are overly broad and restrict workers’ rights.
In its filing against the company, the NLRB notes that Amazon required employees from its drone project to sign NDAs that would limit the ability of workers to openly discuss with one another aspects of their work, effectively making it impossible to organize if they chose to do so.
Mary Kate Paradis, a spokesperson for Amazon, defended the NDA practices by claiming it’s similar to other “common” actions other companies regularly take.
“In this instance, the NLRB is taking one line of our agreement out of context and we look forward to showing that through the legal process,” Paradis said to The Seattle Times.
Seth Goldstein, a lawyer who is representing a former employee who was affected by the NDA, disagrees.
“You can’t talk about business operations, you can’t talk about customers, anything that has to do … with the company and its internal workings,” he said. “It’s basically ‘you can’t talk about work.'”
Goldstein represents former Amazon drone worker Cheddi Skeete. Skeete, who is Black, also sued the company in January alleging he faced racial discrimination and retaliation from the company for bringing up safety concerns. Skeete said he understands the need for NDAs when it comes to proprietary reasons, but added that “an employee should be able to freely speak on things” when it affects workers’ rights.
The NDA itself requires employees to “not acquire, use, publish, disclose, or communicate any Confidential Information except as required in connection with Employee’s work without the prior written approval of an authorized officer of Amazon.” “Confidential Information” includes any information “not otherwise generally known to the public,” such as the company’s “business, projects, products, customers, suppliers, inventions, or trade secrets,” as well as “published and unpublished know-how … Amazon pricing policies … and future plans relating to any aspect of Amazon’s present or anticipated business.”
The language of the NDA doesn’t just extend to limiting conversations with people outside the company, but within it as well, the complaint alleges, making it difficult for workers to discuss aspects of their job that may otherwise compel them to organize and demand better working conditions.
The NDA “was overbroad” and “didn’t allow [Skeete] to talk about anything at the company,” Goldstein said.
“If you can’t talk about anything at work, it becomes very difficult to organize and engage in collective action, or speak out about anything,” he added.
According to Goldstein, the NDA applies to “almost a million” workers at the company, at all of its U.S. locations. Goldstein is confident he and his client will succeed, due to recent actions by NLRB, including deciding that overly broad noncompete agreements violate workers’ rights, too.
A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July next year.
The NLRB has accused Amazon of unfair labor practices in the past, including in 2022, when the federal agency said there was “merit” to workers’ complaints about the company requiring workers to attend anti-union meetings at a Staten Island facility where labor organizers won the right to organize later that year. In that same filing, the NLRB also found merit to complaints from the workers who formed the Amazon Labor Union, which accused the company of telling workers they would withhold benefits if they voted to organize.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.