🗞️ Federal Judge Rules Amazon Violated Labor Law in San Francisco Warehouse Union Fight

An Administrative Law Judge for the National Labor Relations Board issued a detailed ruling on May 29, 2026, finding that Amazon.com Services LLC violated federal labor law on four counts in response to a Teamsters organizing campaign at its DCK6 last-mile delivery station in San Francisco's Bayview District. The decision, 74 pages in length, arose from events that began in October 2024 when roughly 25 warehouse workers gathered in the facility breakroom and presented management with authorization cards signed by a majority of the site's sortation associates, formally demanding union recognition under the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Amazon declined to recognize the union and did not file a representation petition with the NLRB, a posture the union argued triggered mandatory bargaining obligations under the Board's 2023 Cemex Construction Materials Pacific framework. In the weeks that followed, Amazon brought in a substantial number of outside managers and employee relations personnel, deployed messaging about the union organizing campaign on warehouse television screens and breakroom table toppers, held structured information sessions for employees, and distributed new facility-branded safety vests as the Teamsters had distributed their own union-branded gear to workers.

Judge Michael P. Silverstein sustained several of the General Counsel's allegations while dismissing the majority. He concluded that Amazon site manager Adam Carr unlawfully interrogated worker Domenic Daniele on two separate occasions, asking him whether he had signed a union authorization card and whether he supported the union, in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act. The judge also found that Amazon violated Section 8(a)(3) by imposing a new 10-to-15-minute time limit on how long union organizer Johnny Nalls could remain in the employee breakroom after his shift, a restriction that had no written basis in company policy and that had not been applied to Nalls or other employees before the organizing campaign began.

The most significant remedy ordered was the reinstatement of Nalls, who was terminated in December 2024 following an internal investigation that concluded he used a racial epithet during a conversation with a coworker about union support. Applying the Lion Elastomers totality-of-circumstances standard, which governs alleged misconduct occurring in the course of protected concerted activity, Judge Silverstein found that the word was used colloquially and not as a slur, that it was spoken impulsively during a protected discussion about a manager's alleged interference with a coworker's right to wear union insignia, and that Amazon had routinely tolerated the same language at the facility without disciplining any other employee. The judge ordered Nalls' full reinstatement, back pay, and expungement of the termination from his personnel file.

The judge also found that Amazon unlawfully withdrew a learning ambassador position from Leah Pensler, a member of the union organizing committee, after she had been told by a manager that she was accepted into the program. The role involves training new warehouse hires and carries no wage premium. The ruling credited Pensler's account that she applied and was accepted, and concluded that her visibility as a union organizer was a motivating factor in the decision to exclude her.

The ruling dismissed most of the complaint's remaining allegations. Judge Silverstein found no violation in the deployment of additional managers and human resources staff, no unlawful surveillance in the distribution of DCK6-branded safety vests, no unlawful benefit in the increased food offerings to employees, and no unlawful threat in the statements Carr made at the structured information sessions regarding collective bargaining and wages. The termination of Domenic Daniele, fired after being observed riding a stow cart in what Amazon classified as a Category 1 safety violation, was also upheld. The judge acknowledged a flawed investigation and a near-total absence of comparable prior discipline, but concluded that the General Counsel had not established a sufficient link between the discharge and Daniele's union activities, noting that the employee relations manager who witnessed the incident and initiated the investigation had no way of knowing Daniele's union sympathies at the time.

The decision sits within a broader and legally unsettled landscape. The Teamsters have pursued similar recognition demands at Amazon facilities in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and Southern California. The Cemex framework at the center of the union's recognition strategy — under which an employer that neither voluntarily recognizes a union nor files a timely election petition can be ordered to bargain — was rejected in March 2026 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit as exceeding the NLRB's adjudicatory authority. The framework remains in effect within the Ninth Circuit, which covers California. Amazon has not formally responded to the ruling, which is subject to review by the full NLRB Board.

Key Points

• Amazon's DCK6 delivery station in San Francisco was the site of a formal Teamsters recognition demand in October 2024, after a majority of workers signed union authorization cards.
• An NLRB administrative law judge found Amazon violated the National Labor Relations Act on four grounds: unlawful interrogation of an employee about his union sympathies, discriminatory enforcement of a breakroom access policy against a union organizer, withdrawal of a union organizer's acceptance into a training program, and wrongful termination.
• Worker Johnny Nalls was ordered reinstated with back pay after being fired for using a racial epithet during a conversation that the judge found was protected concerted activity. The ruling noted no other employee at the facility had been disciplined for the same language.
• Worker Domenic Daniele's termination for riding a stow cart was upheld despite evidence that managers and other employees had engaged in the same conduct without consequence, because the judge found no proven connection between the discharge and his union activities.
• Organizer Leah Pensler was found to have been unlawfully denied entry into Amazon's learning ambassador program after the organizing campaign began, following a manager's prior communication that she had been accepted.
• Amazon's response to the organizing campaign, including the deployment of additional managers, structured employee information sessions, and the distribution of facility-branded safety vests, was largely found to be lawful.
• The Cemex bargaining order framework, which the union invoked to assert mandatory recognition obligations, was rejected by the Sixth Circuit in March 2026 but remains operative in the Ninth Circuit, which covers California.
• The decision may carry implications for similar Teamsters recognition campaigns at Amazon facilities in New York, Atlanta, Illinois, and multiple California locations.

Primary Source Author: Michael P. Silverstein, Administrative Law Judge, NLRB Division of Judges

Primary Source: Amazon.com Services LLC, JD-33-26, Cases 20-CA-353627, 20-CA-354332, 20-CA-356004 (NLRB Div. of Judges, May 29, 2026)

Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-353627

Supplemental Sources

• NLRB Regional Complaint Against Amazon, April 2025 — Teamsters for a Democratic Union
• Amazon Must Negotiate With Teamsters at San Francisco Warehouse — Los Angeles Times via Yahoo News
• Teamsters and Amazon Reach Agreement on Strike Penalty Rules — FreightWaves
• Sixth Circuit Rejects Cemex Standard as Unlawful Adjudication — Ogletree Deakins
• Teamsters Test Cemex in Amazon Organizing Effort — Benesch Law
• Bloomberg Law: Cemex Doctrine and the Ninth Circuit
• Amazon DCK6 Strike and California Labor Law Context — CalMatters