Amazon faces biggest union action as Teamsters call strike: NPR

Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien, center, is shown with Amazon workers outside the Staten Island Amazon facility JFK8, June 19 in New York.

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Thousands of Amazon workers were expected to take part in a strike that started Thursday morning in a campaign launched by the Teamsters union to pressure the retail giant to recognize its unionized workers in the U.S.

The strike, expected to center around seven Amazon facilities nationwide, comes during the holiday shopping rush and could be the nation’s largest union action against Amazon yet.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and contractors at warehouses, delivery and air hubs. Amazon has refused to recognize the union; it employs about 1.5 million people, excluding part-timers and contractors.

Now, warehouse workers and delivery drivers at seven facilities have organized a strike to pressure the company to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement, including changes to wages, benefits and working conditions. Workers in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Skokie, Ill., planned to take to the picket line.

And the Teamsters say they are also organizing picket lines at “hundreds” of additional warehouses and delivery hubs, encouraging non-union workers to protest under the U.S. Labor Code, which protects workers’ right to take collective action to advance their interests.

The Teamsters told NPR that the strike would last longer than a day, but did not say how long. The workers would be paid strike pay by the union at a rate of $1,000 a week, the union said.

Amazon has not commented on the strike since it was announced on Wednesday.

“If your package is delayed over the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it.”

The Teamsters had given Amazon until Dec. 15 to come to the table to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with its unionized workers.

“These workers are exercising their power,” said Randy Korgan, the Teamsters’ national director for Amazon. “They realize now that there is a way to attack a corporate giant like this – that they have the power.”

Amazon last week accused the Teamsters of illegally threatening and coercing workers to join their union.

“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to deliberately mislead the public — claiming they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.’ They do not,” Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards said Friday.

The Teamsters had organized Amazon delivery drivers and other workers for years, pushing for Amazon to recognize their union. In June, Amazon’s first unionized warehouse in Staten Island, NY — two years after making history by voting to join the fledgling Amazon Labor Union — also affiliated with the Teamsters.

The union is among the most powerful in the United States and Canada, representing 1.3 million people.

Amazon has constantly fought unionization efforts in court and has also contested its formal status as an employer of contract workers.

The company’s workers in Germany said Thursday they planned to strike alongside their American counterparts, according to Germany’s United Services Union. Amazon has previously faced strikes in Germany and Spain around public holidays to demand better wages and working conditions.

“It’s the holiday season. People expect deliveries. This is the moment when workers have an impact on the supply chain,” said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University.

The Teamsters point out that Amazon’s profits had increased during the pandemic and since then. The company is now valued at more than $2.3 trillion, and that reported a net income of 15 billion in the most recent quarter alone. It is the second largest private employer in the United States behind Walmart.

Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s latest financial backers.