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🗞️ Card Check, Confirmed: Judge Orders Amazon to the Bargaining Table in San Francisco

An NLRB judge ruled Amazon must bargain with the Teamsters at a San Francisco warehouse, the first full test of the Board's 2023 Cemex cardcheck framework, with Amazon expected to appeal.

onthelaborfront

onthelaborfront

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🗞️ Card Check, Confirmed: Judge Orders Amazon to the Bargaining Table in San Francisco

A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has found that Amazon.com Services LLC unlawfully refused to bargain with the Teamsters at its DCK6 delivery station in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, marking the first fully litigated case to apply the Board's 2023 Cemex Construction Materials Pacific standard. Under that framework, an employer that receives a union recognition demand backed by signed authorization cards from a majority of workers must either recognize the union or promptly file a petition for a secret ballot election. Amazon did neither after Teamsters supporters presented a recognition demand at a DCK6 break room gathering on October 2, 2024.

Administrative Law Judge Michael P. Silverstein found that 80 of the facility's 121 Tier 1 warehouse associates, about 66 percent, had signed valid authorization cards, comfortably clearing the majority threshold even under the most conservative count. He also found that the Tier 1 associates constituted an appropriate bargaining unit distinct from process assistants and a safety specialist. While the judge noted Amazon raised several substantive legal challenges to the Cemex framework itself, including arguments that it conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and exceeds the Board's authority, he concluded he was bound to follow existing Board precedent and could not adopt the reasoning of the Cemex dissent.

The decision, issued June 22, 2026 and made public the following day, just ahead of Amazon's Prime Day sales event, is the second bargaining order Amazon has received this year under the Cemex framework, following an earlier order involving the company's JFK8 facility on Staten Island. Amazon has signaled it will appeal to the full NLRB and, if necessary, to federal court. The ruling arrives amid an unsettled legal landscape for Cemex. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the standard in March 2026 as exceeding the Board's adjudicatory authority, though it remains in force within the Ninth Circuit, which covers California. Pending Senate confirmation of new Board members could also give the NLRB a Republican majority with the votes needed to revisit Cemex altogether.

Key Points

  • The ruling found Amazon violated Section 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act by failing to recognize the Teamsters or file an election petition within the two week window set by the Cemex standard.
  • It is the first case fully litigated on the merits applying Cemex's cardcheck recognition pathway, rather than addressing it as a secondary issue.
  • The judge found 80 of 121 Tier 1 associates, roughly two thirds, had signed valid authorization cards, establishing majority support regardless of how the bargaining unit is counted.
  • Amazon's challenges to Cemex's legal validity, including administrative law and constitutional arguments, were rejected as already addressed and rejected by the Board majority in the original Cemex decision.
  • The order requires Amazon to bargain with the Teamsters retroactive to October 2, 2024, and to post and distribute notices to employees.
  • The decision is a recommended order subject to review by the full NLRB Board if Amazon files exceptions, and ultimately to potential federal court review.
  • Cemex's legal status is currently unsettled nationally: the Sixth Circuit rejected the standard in March 2026, while it remains controlling within the Ninth Circuit.

Primary Source Author: Michael P. Silverstein, Administrative Law Judge, National Labor Relations Board Division of Judges

Primary Source: Amazon.com Services LLC, JD-39-26, Case 20-CA-353378 (NLRB Div. of Judges, June 22, 2026)

Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-353378

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