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Amazon workers reject union
Amazon workers at a facility on Staten Island voted against forming a union.
NEW YORK - Amazon has fired two employees with ties to the grassroots union that led the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the retail giant’s history.
The company confirmed Tuesday that it fired Michal, or ‘Mat,’ Cusick and Tristan Dutchin of the Amazon Labor Union on Staten Island, New York. But it claims the "cases are unrelated to each other and unrelated to whether these individuals support any particular cause or group."
Cusick, who worked at a nearby Amazon warehouse from the one that voted to unionize last month, said he was fired due to COVID-related leave. He said he was informed by an agent from the company’s employee resource center that he was allowed to go on leave until April 29 but was later fired because leave period extended only until April 26.
"They now say after the fact, after they terminated me, that the COVID-leave actually only extended to the 26th," said Cusick, an organizer who works as the union’s communications lead. "That discrepancy is how they fired me."
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Amazon union vote
Workers at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize. Amazon called the vote "disappointing."
Cusick said he was locked out of Amazon’s internal employee system on May 2 without any notice. The following day, he said he called the employee resource center and was told about his termination.
In a letter sent on May 4, the company told Cusick he was fired for "voluntary resignation due to job abandonment." Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement Tuesday that Cusick had "failed to show up for work since an approved leave ended in late April, despite our team reaching out to him and even extending his leave."
FILE - Amazon Labor Union (ALU) member Tristan Lion Dutchin, 27, gestures as he waits the voting results, Friday, April 1, 2022, in the borough of New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez, File)
"While we normally wouldn’t discuss personnel issues, we think it’s important to clear up some misinformation here," Nantel said.
On Monday, Cusick had told the AP his firing may have been an arbitrary decision by Amazon’s automated human resources system, which has been a subject of scrutiny in the past. "If they do not reverse what is a fairly obvious miscarriage of justice here, my presumption is that they are not doing it because they know that I am an Amazon organizer," he said.
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Amazon union organizers make history
Chris Smalls, the leader of the Amazon workers who successfully voted to unionize, addressed the media on their victory.
Nantel said Dutchin, another organizer who worked at the facility that voted to unionize, was fired because he failed to meet productivity goals. She said Dutchin "had been given five warnings since last summer for performance issues and was consistently performing in the bottom 3% compared to his peers, despite being offered additional training."
"We work hard to accommodate our team’s needs, but like any employer, we ask our employees to meet certain minimum expectations and take appropriate action when they’re unable to do that," Nantel said.
Dutchin did not respond to a request for comment.
Last month, warehouse workers cast 2,654 votes in favor of a union, giving the fledgling Amazon Labor Union enough support to pull off a victory. According to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw the process, 2,131 workers rejected the union bid.
RELATED: Amazon workers in another NYC warehouse reject union
The Associated Press contributed to this report.