NYC Amazon Drivers Demand Ouster of Union-Buster Who Called Worker ‘Homophobic Slur’
Hired union-buster Juan Carlos Cervantes is being accused of trying to provoke a fight with a unionized Amazon worker and calling him a homophobic slur on Friday.
By Steve Wishnia
Amazon delivery drivers in Queens are demanding the company oust a union-busting firm after one of its “persuaders” repeatedly called a pro-union driver a “faggot” on Nov. 27.
According to the Teamsters Union, Juan Carlos Cervantes, working for the antiunion firm Government Resources Consultants of America (GRCA), accosted the driver in front of multiple witnesses at the DBK4 delivery facility in Maspeth while he was preparing to go out on his route that morning. The driver, identified as Emmanuel T., told the union he felt like Cervantes was trying to provoke a fight with him.
Amazon told the Teamsters that Emmanuel T. had been suspended pending an investigation of the incident. Union supporters at DBK4 marched into the facility later on Nov. 27 to demand that he be reinstated. “Our coworker was called a homophobic slur by a union buster you hired,” one shouted at a supervisor.
Amazon brought GRCA to DBK4 after the several hundred drivers there voted to join the Teamsters in September. Cervantes was employed by a subcontractor called Eternity Souls LLC, doing business as Labor Advisors, according to federal disclosure forms examined by LaborLab, a Montana watchdog group on union-busting.
“Amazon hired this union-buster to come harass me at work,” Emmanuel T. said in a statement released by the Teamsters. “We don't need harassment and homophobia. What we need is for Amazon to follow the law and negotiate a Teamsters Union contract that provides the pay and safety we deserve.”
GRCA, based in the Chicago suburbs, is one of more than 20 union-busting firms that Amazon has hired over the past four years, according to federal disclosure forms. The company has refused to recognize the union at five facilities where drivers have voted for Teamsters representation. It has claimed that they are not Amazon employees, but independent contractors hired by the “delivery service partner” (DSP) firms Amazon pays to deliver packages.
That is wrong on two counts, the Teamsters insist. First, in August, the National Labor Relations Board’s regional office in Los Angeles ruled that Amazon was a joint employer at a DSP in Palmdale, California, on the grounds that it exercises significant control over their working conditions.
“This discrepancy raises questions about Amazon’s stance regarding the employment status of DSP drivers,” LaborLab said in a report released in November. “If DSP drivers aren’t employees, why is Amazon hiring consultants to discourage those very same employees from organizing?”
Second, at the five delivery facilities where drivers have voted for Teamsters representation, the union says, Amazon neither challenged the workers’ request that it recognize the union through card check, nor did it file for an election within the two-week deadline established by the NLRB’s Cemex Construction Materials decision in August 2023. Therefore, the union says, Amazon is legally required to bargain with it.
The Teamsters have filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint with the NLRB accusing Amazon of illegally refusing to bargain. It is also filing complaints with both the NLRB and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about the harassment of Emmanuel T.
Multiple union-busters
According to its federal disclosure forms, Amazon spent about $3 million on anti-union firms in 2023, including $200,000 to GRCA, which it retained to “educate employees regarding rights and responsibilities of employers, unions, and employees under the National Labor Relations Act.” It was expected to spend more this year, LaborLab said.
Those numbers are likely to be an underestimate, LaborLab says, because employers often file disclosure forms late or not at all. According to the Economic Policy Institute, employers filed forms disclosing that they hired anti-union consultants in less than 20% of union-representation elections from 2021 to 2023, although the Department of Labor estimates that union-busters are hired in almost 80% of those elections. There is no penalty for failing to file.
According to LaborLab, Amazon hired anti-union consultants 30 times in 2023, but only one filed its disclosure forms on time, 16 filed them late, and 13 did not file at all.
The union-busters it has engaged against DSP drivers include GRCA; Lev Labor, based in Boston’s outer suburbs; and RoadWarrior Productions, in Satellite Beach, Fla. Those firms also hire “persuaders” through subcontractors: Cervantes was one of eight hired in December 2023 through Eternity Souls, which is based in Delray Beach, Fla. He was also hired in August to oppose warehouse drivers trying to join the Teamsters at the Baldor Specialty Foods produce distributor’s Philadelphia facility.
“Amazon uses union-busters because they’re scared,” a coworker of Emmanuel T. said at the Nov. 27 protest. “They pay them hundreds of dollars because they don’t want to pay us just the bare minimum of what we deserve.”