The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has announced that workers at seven Amazon facilities will strike beginning Thursday morning, as the union seeks to pressure the e-commerce giant into agreeing to a labor contract during the busy holiday shopping period, the Associated Press reports.
The workers, who recently authorized the strikes, are taking action after Amazon failed to meet the Teamsters’ Dec. 15 deadline for contract negotiations. While the union describes the strikes as the largest labor action against Amazon in US history, the company maintains that it does not expect significant disruption to its operations.
The Teamsters represent nearly 10,000 workers across 10 Amazon facilities, though this accounts for a small fraction of Amazon’s overall workforce of 1.5 million employees globally. Some of the workers involved in the strike are located at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, where workers voted to unionize with the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and later affiliated with the Teamsters. Other workers, including delivery drivers, have formed union groups with the Teamsters without formal elections.
The strike action on Thursday is set to take place at one Amazon warehouse in San Francisco, California, and six delivery stations in Southern California, New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, and Skokie, Illinois. The union has indicated that workers at additional Amazon locations are prepared to join the strike.
Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien criticized Amazon for its handling of worker relations, stating:
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned.”
Amazon, based in Seattle, has been involved in a legal dispute regarding the unionization of the Staten Island warehouse. The company has sought to overturn the election result and filed a lawsuit challenging the National Labor Relations Board’s constitutionality.
In response to the strikes, Amazon has reiterated that its delivery drivers, who have been organized by the Teamsters for over a year, are not direct employees of the company. Amazon’s business model relies on third-party Delivery Service Partners to handle the delivery of packages. Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel argued that the Teamsters’ claims about representing Amazon employees are misleading, stating:
“They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative.”
