CWA charges eBay’s trading card business with unfair labour practises

On behalf of TCGplayer employees, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) has filed an unfair labour practice claim against eBay-owned TCGplayer. TCGplayer supervisors and administrators, including founder and CEO Chedy Hampson, is accused of unlawfully surveilling union activities in recent weeks, according to the group.

TCG player employees are attempting to unionise, and a supermajority filed for a union representation election this week. If they are successful, they will create the TCG Union/CWA, the first union inside eBay.

 

 

TCGplayer executives, according to the CWA, have visited the floors of the company’s authentication centre in Syracuse, New York. It claims that supervisors and managers noted workers who wore apparel or insignia identifying them as union sympathisers. “This behaviour constituted illegal monitoring of union activities and gave the perception of surveillance aimed to interfere with, constrain, and compel workers in exercising their rights granted by Section 7 of the National Relations Labor Act,” the CWA stated in a statement.

After eBay purchased TCGplayer for up to $295 million late last year, the employees revived their efforts to create a union. They attempted to organise in 2020 but withdrew their union election petition days before the vote. TCGplayer, according to the CWA, foiled such attempts by hiring a union-busting outfit and launching “an intensive anti-union campaign in which employees were often required to attend captive audience meetings and disparaged by management in business correspondence.”