The International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced that workers at seven Amazon factories will begin a strike Thursday morning in the union’s aim to pressure the e-commerce giant into a labor agreement during a key business period.
The Teamsters say workers, who have authorized walkouts in recent days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored the union’s Dec. 15 deadline for contract negotiations. Amazon says it expects no impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers across 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
In a warehouse in New York’s Staten Island neighborhood, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since joined the Teamsters. At other establishments, employees – including many delivery drivers – unionized with them, showing majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes taking place Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in Southern California, New York, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at other facilities are “ready to join,” the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they deserve,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” said he declared.
The Seattle-based online retailer is seeking to redo the election that led to the union’s victory at the Staten Island warehouse, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, whom the Teamsters have been organizing for more than a year, are not its employees. Under its business model, drivers work for third-party companies, called Delivery Service Partners, that drop off millions of packages to customers every day.
“For over a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public by claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon workers and drivers.’ This is not the case, and this is yet another attempt to spread a false narrative,” the Amazon spokesperson said. Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers into joining them, which is illegal and the subject of multiple unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters argued that Amazon essentially controls everything drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings with the NLRB. In September, Amazon raised driver salaries in the face of growing pressure.
