Two Amazon security guards unlocked a mailbox that was used to hold mail-in ballots for a unionization election, a worker told a hearing on May 14.
The union said that employees were asked if and how they had voted, and were told to use the mailbox, which was in front of the building, to cast their ballots.
Jackson testified that he was departing work one day when he saw the guards go to the mailbox and one of them use a key to open a part on the bottom.
“What he was getting out or looking for, I’m not sure,” he said.
Amazon told news outlets in a statement that its access was restricted to the portion of the box where incoming mail was held.
“Similar to any other mailbox that serves businesses, we had access only to the incoming mailbox where we received mail addressed to the building,” a spokesperson said. “The facts will become clear when we have a chance to present them next week.”
Amazon told the board that the union failed to specify how a USPS mailbox is objectionable in a mail-ballot election.
Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), who supported the unionization effort, said that the testimony showed Amazon was caught “red-handed” interfering with the vote.
“This damning eyewitness testimony comes as no surprise. But the worker’s riveting account of a supervisor asking him ‘off the record’ (right!) whether he was for the union is just as important,” he said in a social media statement.
Wilma Liebman, chair of the labor relations board during the Obama administration, told Bloomberg that Jackson’s testimony, if found credible, would likely be enough on its own to overturn the election result.
“What legitimate purpose could there possibly be for Amazon security guards to be opening the box?” she said.