Amazon lawsuit details federal labor board's dysfunction in New York | amNewYork

The New York Attorney General and the Teamsters union frame a challenge to New York’s labor enforcement expansion as evidence of National Labor Relations Board dysfunction. Court filings describe long delays in NLRB processing, including an Amazon employee complaint that has not moved beyond the first enforcement step after 29 months, and other charges that remain at that stage after 24 and 16 months. Amazon obtained a federal court order pausing enforcement of the State Employment Relations Act (SERA) while litigation proceeds. SERA would give the state employee relations board jurisdiction over private-sector labor disputes under the National Labor Relations Act framework. The union and state AG argue the federal court should dismiss Amazon’s challenge because NLRB atrophy and political capture create a labor enforcement “no man’s land.” They cite decades of atrophy and a period without a Board quorum from January 2025 to January 2026, leaving the NLRB unable to issue enforceable judgments.

"A complaint that one union Amazon employee filed with the NLRB 29 months ago has not advanced past the first step of enforcement, and other employees' charges remain at that stage after 24 and 16 months, according to court papers."

"That law would allow the state-level employee relations board to have jurisdiction over private-sector labor disputes through the National Labor Relations Act—the federal law governing union formation and collective bargaining. State and union lawyers argued that the federal court should dismiss the challenge to SERA, which they say takes a step to mitigate what they describe as a labor enforcement no man's land due to the atrophy and political capture of the NLRB."

"The NLRB is no longer either. Not only has it suffered decades-long atrophy, but it recently lacked a Board quorum needed to effect enforceable judgments for almost a year, January 2025 to January 2026, and now operates at the pleasure of the President, wrote Teamsters attorney Julie Gutman Dickinson in her memorandum of opposition to Amazon's suit."

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