In theory, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 protects people against retaliation for the kinds of organizing the fired Amazon workers were doing, much as the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects them against discrimination on the basis of race or sex. In practice, the threshold for firings in the U.S. is so low that it tends to be difficult to prove an employer has crossed such a line. Employers can and do terminate employees for having the wrong political candidate’s bumper sticker on their car or volunteering on the weekends at a local AIDS Foundation. And unlike the Civil Rights Act, the NLRA offers legal recourse only through the National Labor Relations Board, where the worst thing employers generally have to fear is that they’ll someday have to dole out back pay, reinstate fired workers, and promise to change their behavior, without any punitive damages or personal liability.
How the American Worker Got Fleeced
