Bessemer Amazon union organizer says company terminated him
Darryl Richardson, an Amazon employee who has been a prominent voice in the two-year fight to organize workers at the company’s Bessemer center, announced through social media that he has been terminated by the online retailer.
Richardson took to Twitter Sunday, posting a screenshot of a message that he said was the company requesting that he “review your termination letter attached to this email.” The photo was accompanied by a comment: “This is BS” A linked tweet stated, “Didn’t give me no reason why”
He later posted another tweet with what he said was a message from Amazon telling him he had an option to appeal corrective action, which the company said he received on Jan. 21.
“Amazon said I receive corrective Action on the 1/21/2023,how is that when I was off on that day,Saturday,” he wrote.
Requests for comment from Amazon and the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union were not immediately returned. Richardson referred questions to the union.
Richardson took credit as “the one who called and got this started” at a 2022 rally, contacting the union that ultimately resulted in two unsuccessful votes to organize employees with the RWDSU, the most recent in March 2022. That’s despite the efforts of organizers, pro-union politicians and celebrities, and a statement of support by President Joe Biden.
“I felt like we needed to make changes,” Richardson said at the time. “There’s a lot of stuff that needs to be changed, and we’re going to do our best to make that change.”
In 2021, Richardson told attendees at a rally that when he was a new employee waiting to be assigned to a station, he was written up for not being at his station. “If you leave your station you have to clock out,” he said. “I got a write-up for waiting for them to assign me to a station. That’s one of the reasons I thought we needed a union.”
Richardson spoke of getting two breaks a day on a 10-hour shift, and being unable to get to the bathroom and back to his station in the time allotted.
At other times, he spoke on the number of Black employees in Bessemer, and how the union fight was part of the larger struggle of Black Americans to overcome workplace discrimination.
“If Amazon was actually committed to ending racism, it would listen to its Black workers, not campaign against them,” Richardson said in 2021 at a meeting support of the union.
According to Bloomberg Law, the National Labor Relations Board’s general counsel has repeatedly accused Amazon of illegally firing activists. In November, a federal judge in New York ordered Amazon to cease and desist from retaliating against employees for workplace activism. The company has denied any wrongdoing.
The leader of a Staten Island union fight, Chris Smalls, said Amazon fired him for his workplace advocacy back in March 2020, while Amazon says Smalls was terminated for violating COVID-19 safety protocols.