Teamsters Launch Amazon Workers Strike in Effort to Disrupt ...

(Bloomberg) -- After years of hit-and-miss labor activism at Amazon.com Inc., the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has adopted a more direct tactic: calling for a nationwide strike six days before Christmas.

The union asked workers to walk off the job Thursday morning at seven Amazon facilities where the Teamsters have sought to represent the company’s contract delivery drivers or warehouse workers. They’ve also pledged to dispatch members who don’t work at Amazon to set up picket lines at hundreds of warehouses around the country, their biggest show of force to date in a campaign to organize America’s second-largest private employer. 

The delivery depots targeted by the strike are in New York, Atlanta, the Chicago area and California, the Teamsters said. Media reports early Thursday showed Teamster picketers outside other warehouses, including in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, an effort to get trucks picking up packages bound for holiday shoppers to turn around.

An Amazon facility in Queens appeared to be one of the hot spots, with picketers clashing with police and blocking vans while media captured the tension, according to social media posts. The picketing at other sites was more subdued, with just a handful of people holding signs. Managers at some Amazon facilities are sending notices asking workers if they feel safe and encouraging them to report any difficulty entering or exiting the buildings, according to social media posts.

Disrupting Amazon’s operations is a tall order. The online retailer dispatches packages from almost 230 massive warehouses and more than 600 smaller delivery depots scattered around the US, according to MWPVL International, a logistics consultancy. Previous walkouts have had little impact on the company’s operations, and a spokesperson said the company isn’t expecting disruptions this week.

But no prior effort has had this scale, or the public relations muscle of the Teamsters, which represent some 1.3 million workers. Many of those members are drivers, an industry Amazon has upended with its dominance of e-commerce and its bespoke network of contract-delivery firms. The Teamsters have timed their action to generate maximum attention just as shoppers make their final Christmas purchases.

Amazon has been a target of organizing efforts since the pandemic shone a spotlight on the critical role played by the people who pack and ship items in e-commerce warehouses. Employees launched union drives, including at facilities in New York City and Bessemer, Alabama, seeking to unionize through a workplace ballot overseen by a federal labor board.

In New York, the fledgling Amazon Labor Union won – and later affiliated with the Teamsters. In Alabama, workers voted against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

No Resolution

But both efforts lack a definitive resolution years after they began as the company and the unions, respectively, appeal their defeats. Meanwhile, Amazon, like some other big companies, has opted to challenge the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board, the federal body that enforces labor law governing collective bargaining.  

The Teamsters trained their sights on Amazon late last year after wrapping up a new contract for their United Parcel Service Inc. members. So far, the union has avoided the NLRB election process, opting to bring concerns to Amazon managers directly and demand the company come to the bargaining table.

“It’s quite clear that Amazon is not going to do anything according to the rules,” said Randy Korgan, a California-based organizer who leads the Teamsters’ efforts with Amazon workers and delivery drivers. Walkouts, he said in an interview shortly before the Teamsters announced the strike, are designed to get workers “to understand they have the ability to withhold their labor en masse.” 

The theory is that if enough workers participate, Amazon will have no choice but to enter talks. That will take time, Korgan said. “It’s unreasonable to think that one of these fixes everything, and the magic wand comes in and everybody comes to their senses,” he said. “It builds up over time.”  

Amazon says the Teamsters are exaggerating their support among the company’s workforce and contract employees.

“What you’re seeing is almost entirely outsiders — not Amazon employees or partners — and any suggestion otherwise is just another lie from the Teamsters,” spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in an emailed statement. “The truth is that they were unable to get enough support from our employees and partners and have brought in their own members and outsiders to come and harass and intimidate our team, which is inappropriate and dangerous.” 

On a social media forum where Amazon warehouse workers congregate, some employees debated the merits of a union and the challenges the Teamsters face getting a critical mass of people to participate in strikes. Workers warned one another about getting fired for organizing, while others asked how they could get involved and help organize their locations.

The company says it already offers the sort of wages and benefits that unions typically seek. 

The Teamsters have primarily sought to organize workers at what Amazon calls delivery service partners, the contract firms that hire employees who drive Amazon-branded vans. They operate from small delivery depots, where full-time employees sort items into racks before handing off to the contractors. A big city might have several of these facilities, which gives Amazon flexibility to shift volume to other sites in the event of disruptions.

The model also complicates the task of would-be organizers, who must rally employees from among several independent companies, all beholden to Amazon. At the Queens warehouse where some drivers set up a picket line on Thursday, the Teamsters have tried to build support among employees of multiple firms.

Amazon says those workers are not its employees. NLRB officials, responding to worker complaints brought regarding warehouses in California and Atlanta, disagreed, saying the company was a joint employer of drivers at those facilities and must bargain with workers. 

The two most critical facilities where the Teamsters are organizing with Amazon employees — an air cargo hub in San Bernardino, California, and the Amazon Labor Union-represented warehouse in New York City’s Staten Island — aren’t among the initial list of striking facilities.

At least so far: The Teamsters say other sites may join the effort later.

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