In January, Abruzzo’s office issued a complaint accusing SpaceX of illegally retaliating by firing eight workers who circulated an open letter criticising the billionaire chief executive officer. SpaceX responded the next day by suing the labour board, arguing that its structure and proceedings are unconstitutional. — Reuters
Elon Musk just "pounds the table” in his escalating legal battle with the US labour board over his aerospace company SpaceX because he lacks a cogent argument, its top prosecutor said on Feb 7.
"If the law is not on your side, and the facts aren’t on your side, then just pound the table and yell like hell,” said National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, applying an old aphorism, during an interview with Bloomberg in Washington. "That’s what I feel that Elon Musk is doing.”
In January, Abruzzo’s office issued a complaint accusing SpaceX of illegally retaliating by firing eight workers who circulated an open letter criticising the billionaire chief executive officer. SpaceX responded the next day by suing the labour board, arguing that its structure and proceedings are unconstitutional.
The eight workers, Abruzzo said Wednesday, were terminated "for actually bringing up issues that they had around awful, misogynistic, sexist comments, conduct, etc.” What got them fired, she said, was merely "saying we’re in a workplace where this should not be OK and can we talk about this?”
The general counsel was similarly dismissive of legal volleys against the labour board from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc, and at Starbucks Corp, which until last year was led by billionaire Howard Schultz. In each case, she said, "they have these deep pockets” so the companies can pursue lengthy appeals or lawsuits regardless of whether they have merit.
SpaceX didn’t respond to inquiries, and Amazon didn’t immediately comment. A Starbucks spokesperson declined to comment. All three companies have denied wrongdoing.
Amazon has filed numerous objections seeking to overturn a union’s victory in a 2022 election at its Staten Island, New York, warehouse, including arguing that Abruzzo’s office inappropriately influenced workers there by suing to try to get a fired activist reinstated. It has said it expects its legal battle with the labor board to continue to federal appeals court.
In Starbucks’ case, the Supreme Court agreed last month to hear an appeal from the coffee giant that’s challenging the labor board’s injunction requiring reinstatement of fired baristas in Memphis.
Abruzzo’s office has also issued over 100 complaints against Starbucks alleging numerous violations of federal law, including illegally shutting down unionised cafes and refusing to fairly negotiate at locations across the country.
Abruzzo said Wednesday that those complaints seem to have had some impact by reducing the number of alleged illegal statements lodged by local Starbucks managers. Still, she said, "I feel they’re a bad actor nationally.”
A recent assessment the company commissioned that attributed "missteps” in its response to unionization efforts largely to its lack of preparation for them was unconvincing, she said.
When the initial Starbucks union efforts emerged in and around Buffalo, New York, "they certainly felt they could squelch it,” she said. "But what they underestimated was that workers began to talk to one another all over the place.” – Bloomberg
