Amazon Ordered to Recognize Teamsters Union as NLRB's Own Authority Faces Court Limits

On June 23, 2026, Amazon warehouse workers at a San Francisco facility won something they'd fought two years to achieve: a federal order forcing the company to recognize their union and begin bargaining. The same week, a federal appeals court issued a ruling that could ultimately render that victory meaningless.

NLRB administrative law judge Michael Silverstein ordered Amazon to recognize and bargain with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at its DCK6 delivery warehouse in San Francisco. The ruling marks the second NLRB bargaining order against Amazon in less than three months. Yet the same week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued rulings constraining the NLRB's ability to make labor policy through case decisions and to obtain preliminary injunctions—threatening the very regulatory tools that produced the Amazon victory.

The collision represents competing visions of power in American workplaces. On one side: workers and unions asserting that labor law should adapt to protect organizing rights against sophisticated employer resistance. On the other: Amazon and increasingly skeptical courts insisting the NLRB has overstepped its authority, and that worker protections must operate within narrower procedural bounds that favor employers' ability to delay and appeal.

Approximately 10,000 Amazon workers have joined the Teamsters over the last two years, but those organizing gains now hang in legal limbo. Whether these workers ever sit across a bargaining table from Amazon management depends not just on the merits of their case, but on whether the NLRB retains the power to make its orders matter.

The Victory—and Amazon's Response

Judge Silverstein's order requires Amazon to bargain with the Teamsters at DCK6, with the obligation retroactive to October 2, 2024, the date of the union's initial demand. The Teamsters had presented signed authorization cards from 80 of 121 Tier 1 workers—approximately 66% support. Amazon neither recognized the union nor filed an RM petition within the required two-week window under NLRB rules. Instead, the company did nothing, forcing the union into a lengthy legal battle to obtain what the cards already demonstrated.

Over 100 Amazon warehouse employees at the DCK6 facility have joined the bargaining unit with Teamsters Local 665. DCK6 workers were the first-ever group of Amazon warehouse workers to demand union recognition outside the NLRB election process, using a "March on the Boss" strategy—presenting their cards directly to management rather than waiting months for a formal vote that Amazon could contest and delay. When union representatives tried to deliver their demand letter to DCK6 site manager Adam Carr, he declined to accept it. They left it at his feet.

The DCK6 ruling is the first fully litigated case applying the Biden-era Cemex precedent, which allows unions to gain recognition through card-check when an employer fails to either recognize the union or request an election within two weeks. It was also the first case arising solely from an employer's failure to file a petition seeking an election after a recognition demand under Cemex.

The workers organized because the job was breaking their bodies—low pay, lack of basic benefits like health care for part-time workers, unsafe conditions during peak seasons including injuries and chemical burns, and failure to provide breaks. "We organized at DCK6 because we knew we deserved better. We make this city run, but me and my co-workers were experiencing injuries, long-term injuries, body pain," one worker explained. "We need good pay and benefits to take care of our families too. That's why we formed a union with the Teamsters. We are essential workers, and it's time Amazon treats us that way," said Jocelyn Vargas, a DCK6 worker.

The ruling came just hours before the start of Prime Day, one of Amazon's largest annual sales events.

The previous bargaining order, issued April 1, 2026, required Amazon to bargain with the Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1 at the JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island, which represents more than 5,000 warehouse workers.

"We disagree with this administrative law judge's decision, we're appealing it, and we're confident that a court will overrule it," said Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson. That confidence isn't unfounded—recent court rulings have strengthened the company's hand considerably.

"The Teamsters applaud this decision and will do everything in our power to ensure that Amazon complies with it," countered Randy Korgan, Director of the Teamsters Amazon Division. "Amazon has repeatedly demonstrated it has no interest in recognizing its workforce or respecting workers enough to meet them at the table. But as this ruling proves, Amazon cannot forever dodge its legal obligations. The time for Amazon to start bargaining is now".

Korgan's insistence that "the time is now" collides with a procedural reality Amazon understands perfectly: under current law, the time is actually years away—and getting further with each new court decision constraining the NLRB's authority.

The Court Constraints on NLRB Authority

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on March 6, 2026, became the first federal appellate court to invalidate the NLRB's Cemex standard in Brown-Forman Corp. v. NLRB, ruling that the Board exceeded its authority by creating a generally applicable remedial rule through adjudication rather than formal rulemaking. The court characterized Cemex as "rulemaking under the guise of an adjudication" because it announced a new policy for all future cases—not derived from or necessary to resolve the specific dispute before the agency.

Under the 2023 Cemex decision, when a union presents authorization cards signed by a majority of employees and demands recognition, the employer must either recognize the union or promptly file an RM petition within two weeks to request an election. If the employer files for an election but commits unfair labor practices during the critical period that would require setting aside the election, the NLRB dismisses the petition and issues a bargaining order.

In the Sixth Circuit—covering Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—Cemex can no longer be used to issue bargaining orders, though it remains binding NLRB precedent in other jurisdictions.

On May 1, 2026, the Sixth Circuit also rejected an NLRB Section 10(j) injunction request in Kerwin v. Trinity Health Grand Haven Hospital, ruling that the NLRB must provide concrete, non-speculative evidence of irreparable harm rather than inferring harm from an employer's refusal to bargain. The decision requires the NLRB to satisfy the traditional four-factor preliminary injunction test from Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, creating a circuit split with the Second, Fourth, and Ninth Circuits. On June 12, 2026, the NLRB petitioned for rehearing en banc, arguing the panel incorrectly barred inferences of harm based on the violation's nature.

The Paradox: Winning Orders Without Enforcement Power

The DCK6 bargaining order rests on the same Cemex precedent the Sixth Circuit has invalidated. Amazon is appealing to the Republican-majority NLRB board in Washington, which could overturn Cemex entirely. If it does, both the DCK6 order and the JFK8 order covering more than 5,000 workers could be invalidated.

Even if the orders survive at the board level, an enforceable NLRB bargaining order can take over two and a half years to obtain because the Board's order is not effective until a federal court enforces it. Without a preliminary injunction under Section 10(j), employers face no immediate liability or back-pay obligation for the delay. But the Sixth Circuit's Kerwin ruling has made obtaining those injunctions significantly harder. The result is a Catch-22: workers win bargaining orders that take years to enforce, and the regulatory tool designed to speed up that process is being restricted by the same courts.

During the multi-year delay, unions often lose support due to employee turnover and dissatisfaction with the union's inability to deliver on campaign promises.

The Practical Stakes for Workers on the Ground

Workers who organized in 2024 expecting bargaining to begin by October of that year may now face years of waiting before sitting down with management. In the Sixth Circuit states, organizing campaigns can no longer rely on the Cemex card-check pathway, forcing unions back to traditional election processes that are slower and more vulnerable to employer interference. Even outside the Sixth Circuit, the specter of appeals and circuit splits creates strategic uncertainty: should unions pursue card-check recognition knowing the legal ground may shift, or invest in election campaigns that rest on more settled law?

Amazon and the Teamsters reached a settlement in June 2026 under which Amazon will restore unlawfully deducted unpaid time to workers who walked off the job during union organizing efforts and will allow future strikes without penalizing workers' unpaid time balances, showing some incremental progress outside the bargaining order framework.

The Broader Democratic Challenge

The collision between the Amazon orders and the Sixth Circuit rulings reflects a broader judicial reexamination of how administrative agencies can make policy and enforce rights. Courts are increasingly requiring agencies to use formal rulemaking—a slower, more burdensome process—rather than developing policy through case-by-case adjudication, which has been the NLRB's primary tool for adapting labor law to changing workplaces for decades. The circuit split on injunction standards means workers' rights increasingly depend on geography: organizing in Ohio faces different procedural hurdles than organizing in New York, fragmenting what is supposed to be a national framework of labor protections.

The next chapter will be written through appeals: Amazon's challenge to the Republican-majority NLRB board, potential Supreme Court review of the Sixth Circuit rulings, and the NLRB's petition for en banc rehearing on the injunction standard. What remains clear is that the outcome will define not just whether Amazon workers get a union, but whether the regulatory architecture that has governed American labor relations for decades can survive this moment of judicial scrutiny.