Amazon.com filed a lawsuit on Monday against the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), seeking to stop the agency from enforcing a newly passed law that the company argues unlawfully intrudes into private sector labor matters.
In its complaint submitted to Brooklyn federal court, Amazon accused New York of orchestrating an “unconstitutional power grab” by allowing PERB to step into the role traditionally reserved for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees issues such as union organizing, collective bargaining, and workplace disputes.
The legislation at the center of the dispute, Senate Bill 8034A, was signed into law on September 5 by Governor Kathy Hochul. She defended the measure as necessary to protect workers amid the current paralysis at the NLRB, where hundreds of cases remain unresolved since Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox was dismissed in January by Republican President Donald Trump.
Amazon claimed PERB has already begun exercising its new powers, pointing to a charge filed over the August 9 dismissal of Brima Sylla, a JFK8 warehouse employee and local union vice president. The company emphasized that the NLRB had already initiated its own review of the firing.
The state law “flips US labor law on its head: it presumes PERB jurisdiction over every private-sector employer until the NLRB gets a court to hold otherwise,” Amazon said. “New York has created the collision of state and federal authority Congress sought to avoid.”
Requests for comment sent to PERB went unanswered, and the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, tasked with enforcing state laws, also did not respond immediately. Amazon itself declined to comment. The Seattle-based retailer reported a workforce of 1.56 million full- and part-time employees at the end of last year.
NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cowen said last month that federal law likely overrides state-level measures being considered due to the agency’s quorum issues and backlog, stressing that regional NLRB offices remain active in processing cases.
On September 12, the NLRB filed its own lawsuit in Albany federal court to halt New York from enforcing the new statute.
The case is titled Amazon.com Services LLC v. New York State Public Employment Relations Board, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 25-05311.
