Amazon’s Loss in Case Over Union Tactics Set to Embolden Workers

Marijuana handouts. Staged arrests of union leadership. Worker intimidation.

Amazon.com Inc. accused a union of engaging in such tactics as it attempted to organize workers at a Staten Island, N.Y., fulfillment center in 2022. The online retailing giant argued these actions should nullify the Amazon Labor Union’s historic election win at the JFK8 warehouse.

But the National Labor Relations Board’s Democratic majority recently shot down those legal objections to the election, upholding the legitimacy of Amazon’s first-ever US union. That ruling could encourage similar union organizing activity that employers may have difficulty challenging, attorneys and labor observers say.

“It would ...