DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
A U.S. labour board official has recommended a rerun of a landmark Amazon.com Inc union election in Alabama where employees had voted overwhelmingly against making their warehouse the online retailer's first to organize in the United States.
In the coming weeks, a regional director for the U.S. National Labor Relations Board will decide whether to order the rerun based on this recommendation, said an official on Monday with the board who asked not to be named.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which workers rejected joining earlier this year by a more than 2-1 margin, had said Amazon illegally threatened staff with reduced benefits and compromised the election's integrity via a ballot collection box it secured outside the warehouse.
The labor official's recommendation in support of a new election focused on problems with the collection box, a person familiar with the matter said. Reuters has not seen a copy of the recommendation, which a labor board official said may be released Tuesday.
Amazon said it planned to appeal.
"Our employees had a chance to be heard during a noisy time when all types of voices were weighing into the national debate, and at the end of the day, they voted overwhelmingly in favour of a direct connection with their managers and the company," Amazon said in a statement.
Stuart Appelbaum, the RWDSU's president, welcomed the recommendation Monday and said, "The question of whether or not to have a union is supposed to be the workers’ decision and not the employer's."
During a May hearing that lasted three weeks, the RWDSU had argued Amazon improperly influenced voting by pressuring employees to drop ballots in the mailbox while they were in view of warehouse cameras, creating a perception of surveillance that U.S. labor law forbids. Amazon also improperly adorned a tent surrounding the mailbox with messaging related to its anti-union campaign, the RWDSU had said.
Amazon has said the mailbox was installed to give nearly 6,000 eligible voters a convenient option for returning their ballots and that the tent shielded workers from cameras, which predated the collection box.
The recommendation casts doubt on Amazon's victory over the unionizing effort in a contest that amounted to a setback for the U.S. labor movement. The union’s organizing campaign drew implicit support from U.S. President Joe Biden and lawmakers including Senator Bernie Sanders, who visited the warehouse.
U.S. labor law forbids companies from threatening to cut benefits or close facilities when workers support a union. The law also prohibits them from spying on organizing activities or leaving employees with the impression they are under surveillance.
Still, employers such as Amazon have wide legal latitude to campaign aggressively, including by requiring employees to attend mandatory meetings that cast unions in a negative light.
Amazon held such meetings, sent text messages to employees and even displayed campaign literature in at least one of the Alabama warehouse's restroom stalls.
(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco and Nandita Bose in Washington; Additional reporting by Mike Spector Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Senate legal affairs committee has rejected a motion calling for members to take a $50,000 field trip to the African Lion Safari in southern Ontario to see the zoo's elephant exhibit.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.