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A fast moving conveyor moves packages to delivery trucks during operations on Cyber Monday at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, November 29, 2021.
Mike Segar | Reuters
The lead organizer of a growing campaign to unionize a Kentucky Amazon warehouse says the company fired him in retaliation for his efforts, according to a charge he filed with federal labor officials.
Matt Littrell, 22, says he was fired on Friday after a year and a half working for the company, months into a campaign he was leading to form a union at the facility in Campbellsville, about an hour and a half southwest of Lexington.
Littrell, a picker at the warehouse, has been the lead organizer and main public face of the union drive, having been quoted about it in the Louisville Courier Journal, the Guardian and Bloomberg. He also runs a Twitter account for the effort.
“Amazon will go to any lengths to union bust even outside of New York,” Littrell said of his dismissal, nodding to the recent campaigns at Amazon sites in Staten Island and Albany. “They’re going to try to nip every movement in the bud,” he told NBC News.
Amazon denied that Littrell’s firing was retaliatory and said he was terminated due to his performance.
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