eBay Opens New KY Sneaker Authentication Facility As Labor Troubles Linger
UPDATE 5-22-25
eBay is laying off over 200 unionized workers at TCGPlayer, will be moving authentication operations from Syracuse, NY to new facility in Louisville, KY amidst ongoing labor troubles.
Liz Morton
eBay is looking to hire operations and human resources talent for new Louisville, KY sneaker authentication center as expanding labor-centric warehouse operations bring increased employee relations challenges.
The company first got into the sneaker authentication game as part of CEO Jamie Iannone's "focus vertical strategy" catering to "enthusiast buyers" with the acquisition of Sneaker Con's authentication business in 2021 - including warehouses in Las Vegas, New York, and several international locations.
Liz Morton
It was largely missed by media and analysts in 2021, but unsuckEBAY noted at the time that in-house authentication was a "significant step-change" for the company as it departed from the asset light, "just a venue" model that had previously protected it from unionization efforts which had targeted competitors like Amazon.
That risk was finally realized and belatedly disclosed to investors when trading card authenticators at TCGPlayer voted to form the first union in eBay's history just a few months after being acquired by the company in 2022, revealing due diligence failures which resulted in the sudden departure of then Chief Accounting Officer Brian Doerger with no official explanation and less than two weeks notice.
Liz Morton
TCGUnion-CWA has since filed multiple complaints against eBay with the National Labor Relations Board and continues their fight to get eBay to come to the table to negotiate a fair contract.
Liz Morton
eBay has not yet faced organized unionization efforts in their other authentication centers, but that doesn't necessarily mean those locations aren't experiencing their own labor relations issues.
Sneaker authenticators at the Las Vegas location were heavily impacted by the company wide layoff in early 2024 and in 2023, eBay shut down the former Sneaker Con location in New York and moved those operations to New Jersey instead.
Multiple ex-eBay employees who worked at the New York authentication center recently filed a class action lawsuit against the company alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Laws.
Liz Morton
At the time it seemed eBay's move out of New York may have been a tactic to try to mitigate some of their exposure to labor risks, but New Jersey is also a notably union-friendly state, so that move could potentially be an "out of the frying pan and into the fire" situation for the company.
Now it appears someone at eBay has finally taken lessons from Amazon and others operating in the warehouse and logistics spaces, opening their newest authentication facility in a lower cost of living/lower average wage, right to work state - Kentucky.
eBay's career's page shows they are looking to hire multiple roles for this new Louisville location, including an onsite Frontline HR Generalist, a Warehouse Operations Manager, and a Sneaker Authentication Manager.
The HR generalist role is predictably expected to ensure a positive corporate culture while handling a variety of safety, compliance, and labor relations issues.
Notably, for both the Warehouse Operations and Sneaker Authentication Manager roles, eBay apparently thought it was necessary to explicitly call out they are looking to hire someone who can "support employee’s ability to escalate concerns without retaliation or retribution."
Labor-centric warehouse operations aren't the only place where eBay could use some work in that area - the company is currently facing multiple lawsuits and labor complaints alleging discrimination and retaliatory practices in both the US and Ireland from white-collar tech workers and frontline customer service agents too.
Liz Morton
This new authentication center isn't eBay's first time in Louisville, KY - after acquiring GSI Commerce in 2011 and renaming it eBay Enterprise in 2013, they brought over 150 jobs and a $45 million fulfillment center investment to the area.
Webmaster
eBay Enterprise was sold off in 2015 and split into separate business units, eventually rebranding as Radial which still operates a location in Louisville.
The company also recently undertook an "investor recommended" indepedendant Values Assessment, with the purported goal of determining if eBay is living up to the principals of their published Human Rights Policy, including respecting the rights of workers to organize as well as commitments to equal opportunity employment and providing a harassment and discrimination-free workplace.
Liz Morton
eBay's chosen independent assessor Davis Wright Tremaine LLP returned a positive report - an unsurprising result considering eBay explicitly excluded any topics related to working conditions, pay or benefits from the assessment.
The US Department of Justice is also keeping a close eye on the company as part of a deferred prosecution agreement regarding multiple federal felonies committed by eBay security employees who targeted journalists Ina and David Steiners of EcommerceBytes in 2019 with a shocking campaign of harassment and stalking aimed at influencing their coverage and outing an anonymous source known as FidoMaster/ unsuckEBAY on Twitter/X.
Liz Morton
Last year, eBay promoted Aaron Johnson to take on the role of Chief Ethics Officer, despite the fact that in his previous role at the company he was the main recipient of the infamous "Whatever. It. Takes" email from ex-Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer, revealed in the cyberstalking case.
Given the criminal events that occurred following this email, it would appear neither Johnson nor then Chief Legal Officer Marie Oh Huber took action in their respective positions to make sure eBay's head of security, Jim Baugh, handled executive "frustration" within established legal bounds or reported this troubling and inappropriate communication from Wymer through any of the internal compliance or ethics channels which existed at that time - or, if they did, those channels clearly failed.
How are current employees supposed to feel knowing this is the person who may ultimately handle any internal reports or ethics complaints they may have?
eBay also brought in Kristi Selby as their new Head of Labor and Employee Relations last year. Selby previously worked in labor relations at Nestle for ~12 years, which does not bode well for eBay's warehouse employees given Nestle's notorious decades-long anti-union history.
Liz Morton
If you're wondering why you may not have heard about eBay's union-busting activities or multiple lawsuits and labor complaints brought by employees, look no further than eBay's own admitted crisis comms strategies of seeking to hire people with a history of "preventing high-impact media coverage" - a chilling idea considering everything that has been revealed so far from the cyberstalking scandal.
Liz Morton
In addition to leveraging relationships with friendly journalists to promote positive coverage, powerful organizations often deploy "catch and kill" practices to prevent coverage of information they would prefer not to go public.
For example, a publisher may purchase exclusive rights to a story with the goal of burying rather than publishing it or an influential person may put pressure on a media company not to publish a story by either promising some quid pro quo benefit or threatening legal action.
Of note, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's vast philanthropic efforts through Omidyar Network and other non-profits have been strategically funding freelance journalists for years through their Reporters in Residence program, focusing on big-picture economic issues and "Reimagining Capitalism" including "The Future of Workers and Work."
This program has awarded several grants to labor journalists with a specific focus on Worker Power like Kim Kelly, Hamilton Nolan, s.e. smith, and Brian Merchant - all of whom appear to have been curiously quiet about the first union in eBay's ~30 year history and ongoing labor troubles at the company.
Omidyar has funneled his eBay-made billions into a wide variety of world-shaping endeavors like Democracy Fund, Luminate Group, and First Look Media as well as founding The Intercept, which became famous for publishing Edward Snowden's NSA leaks before halting research on the files and locking them down from any further public access in March of 2019.
Omidyar Network also coincidentally funds a handful of "tech accountability" organizations like Accountable.US and Accountable Tech which regularly target Big Tech players like Meta/Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple for scrutiny - but somehow never seem to find a reason to mention anything about eBay.
As part of those tech accountability initiatives, Omidyar Network also provides financial and other support for Big Tech whistleblowers, partnering with Ifeoma Ozoma to create The Tech Worker Handbook.
Omidyar Network
Omidyar backed Facebook/Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021 both directly and indirectly through non-profit org Whistleblower Aid, and it appears he may have connections to the PR firm behind current Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams as well.
Collin Anderson
Given the ongoing fallout of the cyberstalking case and clear indications of longstanding systemic labor issues, where are all the eBay whistleblowers?
Concerned
