Amazon Fires Worker Who Founded Union Movement at Garner Warehouse

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Good morning, readers.

Amazon has fired Ryan Brown, the worker who launched the union movement at the company’s RDU1 warehouse in Garner.

Amazon says it terminated Brown for using language that violates its anti-harassment policy. Brown denies making the specific comments that, in its notice of dismissal, Amazon cited as grounds for his termination.

Brown maintains that he was fired for union activity and intends to file an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board this week.

In an email to the INDY, an Amazon spokesperson wrote that “Mr. Brown was terminated for repeated misconduct that included making derogatory and racists [sic] comments to his co-workers.”

Brown isn’t the first union organizer to be shown the door at RDU1. A Duke anthropology professor who worked at the warehouse last year while researching a book about Amazon—and who was a key organizer, particularly effective at building relationships with Spanish-speaking workers—was fired after making a social media post that Amazon says depicted him violating its alcohol policy. Another worker was terminated this fall, shortly after returning from a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet Senator Bernie Sanders with fellow organizers.

Brown’s firing comes as the fledgling union he co-founded at RDU1 is pushing to collect authorization cards. If successful in gathering signatures from 30 percent of workers, they could trigger a union election that might make RDU1 the second unionized Amazon facility in the country.

Now unemployed after years of simultaneously working at and organizing against Amazon, Brown says the past few days have brought a bittersweet reprieve.

“I’m depleted—mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically,” he says. “I’ve been fighting them for so long.”

Have a good Thursday.

—Lena

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