The Staten Island Workers Union recently claimed the first successful US organizing effort in the retail giant’s history.
Amazon has laid off two employees with ties to the rank-and-file union that led to the first successful organizing effort in the United States in the history of the retail giant.
The company confirmed Tuesday that it has fired Michal, or “Mat,” Cusick and Tristan Dutchin from the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, New York. But he states that “the cases are not related to each other and are not related to whether these individuals support any particular cause or group.”
Cusick, who worked at a nearby Amazon warehouse that he voted to unionize last month, said he was laid off due to COVID-related leave. He said he was told by an agent at the company’s employee resource center that he was allowed to take a leave of absence until April 29, but was later fired because the leave period was only extended until April 26.
“Now they’re saying after the fact, after I got fired, that the COVID leave was actually only extended through the 26th,” said Cusick, an organizer who works as the union’s communications lead. “That discrepancy is how I got fired.”
Cusick said he was banned from Amazon’s internal employee system on May 2 without notice. The next day, he said he called the employee resource center and was informed of his termination.
In a letter sent on May 4, the company told Cusick that he was fired for “voluntary resignation due to job abandonment.” Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said in a statement Tuesday that Cusick “has not reported to work since completing an approved furlough in late April, despite our team reaching out to him and even extending his furlough.”
“Although we wouldn’t normally discuss personnel issues, we think it’s important to clear up some misinformation here,” Nantel said.
Cusick had told The Associated Press on Monday that his firing may have been an arbitrary decision by Amazon’s automated human resources system, which has come under scrutiny in the past. “If they don’t reverse what is a pretty obvious miscarriage of justice here, I presume they’re not doing it because they know I’m an Amazon organizer,” he said.
Nantel said Dutchin, another organizer who worked at the facility who voted to unionize, was fired because he didn’t meet productivity goals. She said Dutchin “had received five warnings since last summer for performance issues and was consistently performing in the bottom 3 percent compared to his peers, despite being offered additional training.”
“We work hard to accommodate the needs of our team, but like any employer, we ask our employees to meet certain minimum expectations and to take appropriate action when they are unable to do so,” Nantel said.
Dutchin did not respond to a request for comment.