The Teamsters launched an unexpected labor strike against Amazon on Thursday, potentially throwing the holiday online shopping season in disarray as the workers fight to improve their lives.
Sean O'Brien, the Teamsters general president, issued a statement on X telling potentially frustrated Amazon customers that shipping delays could have been avoided if Amazon had negotiated with them.
“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,” he wrote. “These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible. Instead, they’ve pushed workers to the limit and now they’re paying the price. This strike is on them.”
Amazon has insisted its operations will not be affected by the strike, CNN reports. While the Teamsters represent some 7,000 Amazon workers, that number still only accounts for 1 percent of the shipping giant's total workforce.
The strike kicked off on Thursday when workers at a facility in Queens, New York, stopped working at 6am. Facilities in Illinois, Atlanta, San Francisco, Victorville, and City of Industry in California all joined in on the strike.
Workers at the Queens facility picketed for hours before the NYPD arrived and began arresting strikers.
NYPD out here in Queens doing Amazon’s bidding by roughing up and arresting workers who are standing up for themselves. The @Teamsters have a right to strike and our police should be protecting them, not Jeff Bezos pic.twitter.com/vg6FS0JbIy
— Sen. Mike Gianaris (@SenGianaris) December 19, 2024
Luke Cianciotto, a driver at a Skokie, Illinois Amazon facility, said he and his coworkers are struggling to get by despite putting in long hours.
“We are struggling and fighting for basic benefits and needs that are otherwise an industry standard,” he told a group of reporters on Thursday. "Many of us, we don’t have any Christmas presents under the tree this year. The wages and hours we get working for Amazon simply aren’t enough to get by in today’s economy.”
Another worker at the facility, Gabriel Irizarry, accused Amazon corporate of not respecting its workers.
“They talk a big game about taking care of their workers, but when it comes down to it, Amazon does not respect us and our right to negotiate for better working conditions and wages," he said. "We can’t even afford to pay our bills.”
Amazon insists that the Teamsters are "misleading" the public and that the company pays fair wages.
"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," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said.
She also said that in September the company boosted the average base pay to $22 per hour, and increased its pay for transportation and warehouse workers by 20 percent.
Amazon has a history or refusing to recognize organized labor groups. The first unionized Amazon warehouse was in New York's Staten Island. The National Labor Relations Board certified the union, but Amazon has appealed the NLRB's ruling and, according to union members, has refused to engage with their group.
Nantel told CNN in a statement that the Teamsters did not even represent "any Amazon employees despite their claims to the contrary," but the Amazon workers represented by the Teamsters argued Amazon was hiding behind contractors to protect its image.
Ash’shura Brooks, a driver at the Illinois facility, told CNN that Amazon denying that her and her coworkers are even their employees was “heartbreaking… for Amazon to tell us we’re not Amazon drivers, when we wear Amazon vests and deliver in Amazon vans.”
Technically drivers like Brooks and Cianciotto work for a third-party company that contracts with Amazon, but, as Cianciotto pointed out, many third party contractors exist solely to provide a service to Amazon.
“These third party contractors don’t exist without Amazon,” he said.
Nantel said that Amazon's employees have "always" had the choice to join a union, and that the company favors "opportunities for each person to be respected and valued as an individual and to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team."
There's no indication that Amazon plans to work with the Teamsters, and it's unclear how long this current strike might last.
