eBay charged with multiple unfair labor complaints in struggle with its first union

theverge.com:

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

eBay is the latest company to be hit with unfair labor complaints as this year’s hot labor summer continues amid strikes, threats of strikes, and workers all over the country organizing for better working conditions. The complaints were filed on behalf of workers at TCGplayer, a company eBay acquired in 2022 that’s known for selling and authenticating trading cards from games like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, and Magic: The Gathering. The complaints allege that after workers at TCGplayer won their union election back in March, management of eBay and TCGplayer has refused to acknowledge the union and engaged in tactics designed to impede or delay workers’ ability to negotiate for a fair contract.

“My colleagues and I haven’t had a cost-of-living raise in 3 years. We are losing sick time and face constant changes at work that impact our ability to be successful,” said Briana Thomas, a member of the TCG Union-CWA and part of its organizing committee in a press release from the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

In an exclusive interview with The Verge, Thomas spoke about the issues workers have had since winning their union election five months ago.

“Back in March, the majority of my coworkers and I voted in favor of the CWA representing us,” Thomas said. Since then, Thomas explained that eBay and TCGplayer have filed several appeals challenging the election while also refusing to recognize the union amid the appeals process, stymieing TCG Union’s ability to negotiate for a fair contract.

“They have refused to give us our rights to status quo. Our Weingarten rights. They refuse