The Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters says employees at seven Amazon amenities will start a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to strain the e-commerce big for a labor settlement throughout a key procuring interval.
The Teamsters say the employees, who licensed walkouts prior to now few days, are becoming a member of the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it would not count on any influence on its operations throughout what the union calls the most important strike in opposition to the corporate in U.S. historical past.
The Teamsters say they signify practically 10,000 employees at 10 Amazon amenities, a small portion of the 1.5 million individuals Amazon employs in its warehouses and company places of work.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest firms.
At a warehouse within the New York Metropolis borough of Staten Island, 1000’s of employees who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. On the different amenities, workers – together with many supply drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority assist however with out holding government-administered elections.
The strikes taking place Thursday are going down at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and 6 supply stations in southern California, New York Metropolis, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, in line with the union’s announcement. Amazon employees on the different amenities are “ready to hitch” them, the union mentioned.
“Amazon is pushing its employees nearer to the picket line by failing to indicate them the respect they’ve earned,” Teamsters Basic President Sean M. O’Brien mentioned in an announcement.
“In case your bundle is delayed in the course of the holidays, you may blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a transparent deadline to come back to the desk and do proper by our members. They ignored it,” he mentioned.
The Seattle-based on-line retailer has been searching for to re-do the election that led to the union victory on the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now signify. Within the course of, the corporate has filed a lawsuit difficult the constitutionality of the Nationwide Labor Relations Board.
In the meantime, Amazon says the supply drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for greater than a 12 months, aren’t its workers. Beneath its enterprise mannequin, the drivers work for third-party companies, referred to as Supply Service Companions, who drop off hundreds of thousands of packages to prospects on a regular basis.
“For greater than a 12 months now, the Teamsters have continued to deliberately mislead the general public – claiming that they signify ‘1000’s of Amazon workers and drivers’. They do not, and that is one other try and push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel mentioned in an announcement. “The reality is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and tried to coerce Amazon workers and third-party drivers to hitch them, which is prohibited and is the topic of a number of pending unfair labor apply expenses in opposition to the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon primarily controls every thing the drivers do and needs to be categorised as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made earlier than the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the rising strain.
Discover more from News Journals
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
