TCGplayer, the eBay-owned trading card marketplace, is facing its fourth unfair labor charge in the space of two months. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) claimed that, one business day after TCGplayer employees voted to form eBay’s first union last Friday, the company fired a worker for engaging in union activity.
The CWA called the firing of worker Iris St. Lucy “retaliatory” in the wake of the election. The union claims that TCGplayer “management has escalated its anti-union war against workers” as a result of the vote. All non-supervisory workers at TCGplayer’s authentication center in Syracuse, New York (who numbered 272 as of Friday) are now represented by the union.
Since TCGplayer workers announced their second unionization attempt in January, the CWA has filed three other unfair labor charges with the National Labor Relations Board. Among other things, the CWA has accused the company of requiring employees to attend anti-union meetings, interrogating workers and monitoring those who wore clothing or badges that identified them as supporters of TCGunion-CWA, the union they eventually formed under the CWA.
“Not only are eBay and TCGplayer violating labor law, the company is undermining its workers’ rights to union representation, fair wages, dignity on the job and the ability to support their families,” CWA secretary-treasurer Sara Steffens said in a statement. “TCGplayer needs to stop these attacks and commit to bargaining a contract in good faith.”
Engadget has contacted TCGplayer for comment.
Source: www.engadget.com