Teamsters: Atlanta card check majority a pre-holiday win at Amazon

Teamsters

ALPHARETTA, Ga.—In an indication of progress in a major union organizing drive, the Teamsters are reporting “a major win outside the NLRB election process” by gaining a card-check majority among workers at the giant Amazon warehouse in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Ga.

Hundreds of workers, many of them drivers at the DGT8 warehouse, signed petitions and National Labor Relations Board union election authorization cards.

The Atlanta workers read their petition, which included their reasons for unionizing, and presented both to floor supervisors after a “March on the Boss” just before Thanksgiving. The union posted the video of the march and presentation on TikTok.

“We make half of what USPS makes. That doesn’t make sense,” one worker said.

“To do 200 stops in ten hours is impossible. It’s slavery,” another driver told the floor bosses.

Pay, or lack of it, safe working conditions and respect on the job are common themes of all the local warehouse drives. Amazon workers are “bracing for the holiday peak season and workers are pushed to their limits to meet skyrocketing demand,” the union said. Many Amazon drivers at DGT8 “are denied basic benefits, too.”

The Atlanta march was the fifth such event since the start of September, according to Kara Deniz of the Teamsters communications department. Before them, Amazon warehouse workers in San Francisco, and drivers in Victorville and in the City of Industry, both in California, marched on their bosses with similar petitions, cards and reasons. So did warehouse workers in Queens, N.Y.

Before September, Amazon workers at its Skokie warehouse just outside Chicago’s O’Hare Airport began a brief strike and followed with continuing picketing over Amazon’s labor law-breaking—formally called unfair labor practices—there. Some 100 San Bernardino, Calif., warehouse workers staged a strike in late July against the law-breaking, too.

Right now, Amazon workers have won a formal NLRB recognition vote at one Amazon warehouse, JFK8 on Staten Island, N.Y. The then-independent Amazon Labor Union, now semi-independent ALU/Teamsters Local 1, decisively triumphed there. The NLRB certified it several months ago.

The other card-check majorities are the opening results of a giant two-year multimillion-dollar Teamsters organizing drive at Amazon, one of the nation’s largest private employers.

When current union President Sean O’Brien ran as an insurgent almost four years ago, he called Amazon “an existential threat” to the union’s core of warehouse workers and truckers. He said he would set up a separate division, with money, to organize it.

One of the world’s richest people, Jeff Bezos, controls Amazon, even though he stepped down as CEO. He’s virulently anti-union.

O’Brien also notes taxpayers indirectly fund Amazon’s union hate. Amazon has $20 billion in contracts for web services for the Pentagon, the Navy and the super-secret National Security Agency.

That’s even though Democratic President Joe Biden ordered federal contractors to obey labor law and stay neutral, at least, in union organizing drives. The military and NSA’s codebreakers didn’t listen.

“We should not be rewarding with taxpayer money a company that uses all means—legal and illegal—to deny employees their federally protected right” to organize and bargain collectively, O’Brien told the Senate Labor Committee two years ago.

The same conditions apply at the other Amazon warehouses and among other drivers, too. That includes so-called DSP drivers who wear Amazon uniforms, drive Amazon trucks and deliver Amazon packages —but who are actually employed and paid by independent trucking firms which subcontract with Amazon for local deliveries.

Amazon has already retaliated against one of the subcontractors, in Southern California. He spoke favorably about the organizing drive—and Amazon cut him off at the knees, cancelling his delivery contract.

“Amazon workers deserve so much more from a company that makes billions of dollars in profits every year,” DGT8 worker Trent Knight told the union. “Many of us can barely afford to pay our bills and make rent each month, yet we’re the reason Amazon is one of the most profitable companies in the world. With the union, we’re taking a step to finally get the pay, benefits, and respect we deserve.”

“This organizing drive isn’t about one worker or one warehouse,” said Amazon DCK6 warehouse worker Dori Goldberg of San Francisco. “This is a ground-up movement to ensure all Amazon workers are treated fairly and with respect. Together, we’re sending a clear message to Amazon that we will not back down.”

The subcontracted drivers from the DBK4 warehouse in Queens walked off the job last December to protest Amazon’s union-busting and labor law-breaking. They also demand consistent schedules, properly maintained trucks, and reasonable workloads.

“We’re the workers delivering your packages to your door. We’re the faces and names that you know. It’s time Amazon stops treating us as disposable and creates a space where we can discuss grievances in an equitable way. We need a fair and livable wage and affordable medical care,” said Queens DBK4 driver Jeffrey Arias.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.