Amazon Suspends Workers After Protest Over Warehouse Fire

Under federal labor law, employees have a right to engage in so-called concerted activity for “mutual aid or protection,” such as protesting a dangerous work environment. The union said it intended to file an unfair-labor-practice charge in response to the suspensions.

Night-shift workers complained Monday that supervisors had told them that they would have to work despite the fire earlier in the day, even though workers who had been on the job during the fire were sent home with pay.

“Workers want to go home,” Derrick Palmer, an employee at the warehouse who is vice president of the Amazon Labor Union, said in an interview Monday night. “They sent the day shift home, but they’re making the night shift stay.” (Mr. Palmer works the day shift.)

In an initial statement on Monday night, Amazon said it had asked night employees to report to their shifts after the fire department certified that the building was safe. “While the vast majority of employees reported to their workstations, a small group refused to return to work and remained in the building without permission,” the statement said.

Connor Spence, another employee at the warehouse who is the union’s treasurer, said some employees had eventually returned to their workstations, while others had gone to the main office at the site to continue their protest.