Strike efforts by union advocates The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and Amazon warehouse workers have begun before one of the busiest delivery seasons of the year after claims that the company holds “insatiable greed,” ABC News reports.
The strike started on Dec. 19 in a number of large Amazon facilities in cities including New York City, Atlanta, three locations in Southern California, San Francisco, and Skokie, Illinois. In what Teamsters call the “largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history,” local unions will also be seen in primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers across state lines.
Things took a turn after the online shopping giant allegedly refused to bargain with workers organized with the Teamsters. Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement that if shoppers are upset over delivery delays, they can blame Amazon. “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” O’Brien said.
“We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it.”
According to the Associated Press, Teamsters represents close to 10,000 workers at 10 different Amazon facilities, which is only a small portion of the 1.5 million people that work for the company within its warehouses and corporate offices. O’Brien continued to say the strike is another demand for workers to get their respect. “Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” he said.
However, Amazon says they have been more than accommodating and accuse Teamsters of illegally coercing workers to join them. Spokesperson Kelly Nantel touched on the company taking a number of measures to enhance employee morale and the hiring process, including increasing the starting minimum wage for fulfillment center and transportation employees by 20%.
In September 2024, the company’s average base wage went up to $22 per hour. Nantel says the strike is just “another attempt to push a false narrative.” “For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” she said.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.”
The company also claims that the fight for drivers is not theirs as Amazon claims they are not employees under a new business model. Delivery drivers allegedly work for a third-party business called Delivery Service Partners. However, Teamsters continue to stand on the shopping conglomerate controlling everything the drivers do, meaning they should be characterized as employees.
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