(The Center Square) — Retail giant Amazon and a national labor agency are suing New York over a new law that critics say usurps the federal government’s role in regulating organized labor.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York City, Amazon argues that a newly minted state law giving the New York State Public Employment Relations Board authority to oversee union elections and resolve unfair labor practice charges is an “unconstitutional power grab” that’s preempted by federal labor laws.
Amazon was seeking a temporary restraining order blocking the law, but U.S. District Court judge Eric R. Komitee rejected that request in an order issued late Tuesday, citing a lack of notice to defendants named in the lawsuit.
Lawyers for Amazon said the New York law “flips U.S. labor law on its head” by giving the state’s PERB jurisdiction over every private-sector employer “until the NLRB gets a court to hold otherwise.”
“New York has created the collision of state and federal authority Congress sought to avoid,” the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint.
The company’s lawsuit comes after PERB invoked the law to challenge the August 9 firing of Brima Sylla, a union vice president and employee at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, even as the NLRB was conducting its own review. Union officials allege that Sylla was fired for organizing workers at the Staten Island facility, which Amazon denies.
Amazon’s lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to New York’s law, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month. The law authorizes the state’s labor board to assert jurisdiction over disputes between employers and recognized employee organizations if the National Labor Relations Board is “unable” to resolve the dispute.
Hochul touted the new measure as a response to the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle” labor unions and said the new requirements “protect worker rights and send a clear message that we will always have the backs of New York’s workers.” She noted that hundreds of cases before the NLRB are backlogged up after Republican President Donald Trump fired Democratic member Gwynne Wilcox in January.
Last week, the National Labor Relations Board filed a lawsuit against New York claiming the law stripped the agency of its “statutory duties” to investigate unfair labor practices by public and private sector unions.
NLRB’s Acting General Counsel William B. Cowen, who filed the complaint, said New York’s law is preempted by the federal government, which has “exclusive jurisdiction over unfair labor practices in the private sector.”
“Employers, unions, and employees deserve clarity on their legal rights and regulatory obligations,” Cowen said in a statement. “Beyond the fact that this legislation is unmistakably preempted, attempts such as this only create confusion, waste employees’ time, delay the ultimate resolution of labor disputes, and drive up costs for businesses, which in turn will divert resources that may otherwise be used to invest in their employees or create new jobs.”
