American workplaces have made significant strides in fostering equality of opportunity and eliminating hostile environments. However, organized labor has repeatedly created toxic work conditions under the approval of federal labor regulators.
Recent incidents include a coworker branding another as a “gutter b,” “crack-head a,” and “crack hoe”; a male colleague calling a woman a “whore” and exposing his privates; and strike workers yelling, “Go back to Africa, you bunch of f losers” and “f n scabs.”
These documented cases of harassment against women and Black employees by union organizers were catalogued by the Institute for the American Worker.
In one instance, an organizer outside an Amazon facility captured a altercation on camera and livestreamed it globally. Employers in these situations have punished the perpetrators, but they were penalized by federal labor regulators who prioritize protecting union organizing over ensuring workplaces are free of discriminatory behavior.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. No worker should endure harassment or abuse from a colleague or supervisor. Victims have every right to seek legal remedies through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or pursue criminal charges if necessary.
Employers face liability for tolerating hostile work environments. Workplace harassment trainings educate employees on unacceptable conduct and its consequences. Employers must discipline or terminate violators of law.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has long set precedents that enable such misconduct. For example, the NLRB forced Amazon to reinstate Gerald Bryson, who was dismissed for making vile comments including calling a female colleague “a dumb fing b who can’t even use cleaners” and describing his store manager in degrading terms.
The NLRB has ruled that strikers’ profane, vulgar, racist, and insulting language is protected if it does not involve threats of violence. This interpretation has been criticized as a license for illegal behavior.
In 2019, the EEOC highlighted the NLRB’s conflict with workplace civil rights laws in an amicus brief, stating employers should address such discriminatory language.
A federal appeals court has also rebuked the NLRB. In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned an NLRB ruling that protected Starbucks from discipline for terminating a supervisor who used vile, sexist, and homophobic language against employees.
The court distinguished between protected expression and abusive behavior, sending a clear message to the NLRB: stop shielding union organizers who violate civil rights and federal law.
