Judge rules Amazon must reinstate fired warehouse worker

A judge has ruled Amazon must reinstate a former warehouse employee who was fired in the early days of the pandemic, saying the company “unlawfully” terminated the worker who led a protest calling for Amazon to do more to protect employees against COVID-19. On Monday, administrative law judge Benjamin Green said Amazon must offer Bryson his job back, as well as lost wages and benefits resulting from his “discriminatory discharge.” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement that the company will appeal the ruling. We do not tolerate that type of conduct in our workplace and intend to file an appeal with the NLRB.” Bryson first participated in a March 2020 protest over working conditions led by Chris Smalls, another warehouse employee who was fired by the online retail giant and is heading up the Amazon Labor Union, the nascent group which won a union election earlier this month at the Amazon facility where both men worked. But the judge sided with Bryson’s account, saying it was unlikely that he would “fail to convey such a prominent remark to which he had a strong reaction.” The judge said in his decision that Amazon rushed to judgment and pursued a “skewed investigation” into the argument designed to blame only Bryson for that incident, adding the company wanted discharge Bryson for his “protected concerted activity instead of fairly evaluating” what happened. In its investigation into the altercation, Greene said Amazon “preferred not to obtain information from someone who was protesting with Bryson even though that person was likely in the best position to explain what happened.” Instead, he said multiple witness accounts of the incident submitted by the company were coincidently “one-sided,” adding he found it implausible the statements were made “unless such accounts were solicited from them.” The NLRB had also pushed for Bryson’s reinstatement in a federal lawsuit filed last month, using a provision of the National Labor Relations Act that allows it to seek temporary relief in federal court while a case goes through the administrative law process.