The New York Attorney General’s office and the Teamsters union have turned a lawsuit over a state labor law into an appraisal of the National Labor Relations Board’s failures.
Recent filings by the union and the state AG in Amazon’s federal case against New York’s recent attempt to expand labor relations enforcement capture a damning level of dysfunction in the local NLRB offices’ ability to respond to alleged labor rights violations.
A complaint that one union Amazon employee filed with the NLRB 29 months ago has not advanced past the first step of enforcement, and other employees’ charges remain at that stage after 24 and 16 months, according to court papers.
In its lawsuit against New York, Amazon has successfully gotten a federal judge to pause the enforcement of the State Employment Relations Act (SERA) during litigation. That law would allow the state-level employee relations board to have jurisdiction over private-sector labor disputes through the National Labor Relations Act — the federal law governing union formation and collective bargaining.
State and union lawyers argued that the federal court should dismiss the challenge to SERA, which they say takes a step to mitigate what they describe as a “labor enforcement no man’s land” due to the atrophy and political capture of the NLRB.
“That doctrine requires a functioning, independent NLRB. The NLRB is no longer either. Not only has it suffered decades-long atrophy, but it recently lacked a Board quorum needed to effect enforceable judgments for almost a year, January 2025 to January 2026, and now operates at the pleasure of the President,” wrote Teamsters attorney Julie Gutman Dickinson in her memorandum of opposition to Amazon’s suit.
The NLRB did not comment on the assertions. Amazon also did not return a request for comment.
As part of its argument, the union and state AG rely on a set of data that they pulled from the labor board’s three New York officers, quantifying the extent of the delays that workers face once they’ve filed labor complaints.
The NLRB region covering Manhattan and the Bronx takes an average of 368 days to complete an investigation and issue complaints on meritorious labor-violation charges, according to court filings. In the region stretching over Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, this process has taken as long as 1,396 days.
These figures refer only to the first step of enforcement, before the lengthy process of an administrative law judge weighing in, even if cases are appealed and require a final board decision. Throughout New York, there are currently 80 charges that were filed in 2022, for which the regional offices have formalized a complaint, but have not gotten an ALJ decision.
Ira Pollock, a Queens Amazon warehouse worker who gave testimony as part of the Teamsters’ court filings, claims he was fired for taking an extended medical leave in 2025 as retaliation. He said three of the four labor complaints he filed with Amazon from early 2023 are all still pending with the NLRB.
“The languishing unremedied [unfair labor practice complaints] is disheartening and has chilled warehouse workers from participating in organizing,” wrote Pollock.
Amazon’s argument in the suit is that the labor enforcement that SERA extends to the state’s Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) is preempted under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1959 San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon ruling, which deems federal employee labor rights to be the exclusive domain of the national labor board — not PERB.
It’s an argument that U.S. District Court Judge Eric Komitee of the Eastern District of New York found convincing when he held that Amazon would likely prevail on the merits of its challenge and granted it a temporary injunction in November.
In response, the unions and AG have argued that Garmon is no longer applicable to the current state of federal labor law after President Donald Trump fired one of the NLRB members in a move that flouted procedure and left it without a quorum and unable to function for a year.
The NLRB regained its ability to issue decisions in December, when the Senate confirmed two new members, but lawyers argued that its ability to end the quorum has become a de facto tool of presidential control over the quasi-judicial agency.
“The NLRB currently lacks—and will not likely regain—its independence,” wrote the Teamsters lawyer in the memorandum.
Amazon’s lawyers have maintained that Komittee should move forward with issuing a permanent injunction against SERA.
