WASHINGTON—“Time has run out for this trillion-dollar company,” said Teamsters President Sean O’Brien. “The Teamsters are done asking nicely for Amazon to stop breaking the law. Amazon must commit to come to the table and bargain a Teamsters contract with its workers—or face the consequences of its inaction.”
Earlier this month, the Teamsters’ Amazon Labor Union’s local gave the monster warehouse and retail firm a deadline of December 15 to follow the law and agree to bargaining dates for a union contract. That date has since passed and no bargaining dates were set as of press time.
A strike during the holiday season, when Amazon is at its busiest, would be a major blow to the e-commerce giant. The scale of the strike, with more than 20 warehouse and driver units across the country, would be unprecedented.
The refusal by Amazon to bargain in good faith, or at all, is unsurprising, especially for Amazon Labor Union-IBT Local 1 workers at the Staten Island, N.Y., JFK8 facility. They were the first workers to organize and win a union at Amazon in an historic victory over two years ago. They have been fighting for a contract ever since and faced unprecedented union-busting and delay tactics from Amazon.
Now they’re not alone
But now they’re not alone. In addition to the Amazon workers at JFK8, the DBK4 delivery center in Queens and DIL7 delivery center in Skokie, Ill., all overwhelmingly authorized unfair labor practice (ULP) strikes at their facilities.
At both of those warehouses, the Teamsters cited Amazon’s “illegal refusal to recognize their union and negotiate a contract” to address low wages and dangerous working conditions at Amazon warehouses as the reason for walking out.
“Amazon’s refusal to negotiate is a direct attack on our rights,” said Connor Spence, president of ALU-IBT Local 1. “If Amazon chooses to ignore us, they’re the ones ruining Christmas for millions of families. We’re not just fighting for a contract; we’re fighting for the future of worker power at Amazon and beyond.”
“Driving for Amazon is tough,” said Luc Rene, a worker at the DBK4 warehouse. “What’s even tougher is fighting a mega-corporation that constantly breaks the law and games the system. But we won’t give up.”
Amazon now has more than 700,000 workers, making it the largest employer of warehouse workers in the nation, a report from the University of Illinois at Chicago said. Around 41% of its warehouse workers report being injured while working at Amazon and 51% of those at the company for more than three years have been injured. A whopping 69% had to take unpaid time off due to pain or exhaustion from working at the company in the past month and 34% have had to do so three or more times.
Prior AFL-CIO studies of warehouse workers’ injury data show Amazon employs one of every three warehouse workers in the U.S., but its reported injuries account for one of every two workers harmed on the job.
“It’s constant speed-up during the holidays,” said Justine Medina, who works at JFK8. “Every horror story you read about Amazon is true, but worse.”
Riley Holzworth, a worker at DIL7 in Skokie, said that while Amazon is one of the biggest companies on the planet, “we are struggling to pay our bills.”
Earlier this month, in Georgia, Amazon drivers at the DGT5 and DGT8 facilities organized with the Teamsters and demanded union recognition with a march on the boss. They joined another 1,000-plus workers at the KSBD air hub in California who did the same. Now, they are all part of the more than 7,000 Amazon workers in multiple states who joined the Teamsters to take on Amazon’s rampant corporate greed and secure better–and safer–working conditions.
Daniel Salinas, an air hub worker at KSBD, said Amazon workers across the country are organizing because they have simply had enough.
“The disrespect we face every day from management while working long hours and doing back-breaking work is a disgrace,” he said.
Over the weekend, the workers got support from pro-labor Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., as well. “Amazon delivery drivers and warehouse workers deserve decent wages, benefits and working conditions—and the right to form a union,” he said.
Sanders adds more evidence
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Labor Committee, added even more evidence to the workers’ cause. His panel released an extensive report on safety conditions within Amazon warehouses. Key findings included injury rates far higher than the industry norm and that two-thirds of the warehouses had abnormally high rates. And that Amazon fudged the injury figures it reported to federal probers.
The high rates were due to a company-wide mandate of speed over safety, complete with intensive tracking of workers’ package productivity rates. And Amazon knew it, for at least the last seven years.
“When internal studies recommended efforts that might reduce workers’ pace—and potentially hurt the company’s bottom line—Amazon chose not to act on the findings. In short, the investigation found Amazon is not only aware of the connection between speed and injuries, but the company specifically rejected potential safety improvements, accepting injuries to its workers as the cost of doing business.
“Workers told the committee about Amazon regularly ignoring safety concerns, ordering workers to stay in roles that were causing them pain, denying workers needed medical care or pressuring them to return to work too soon, and refusing accommodations for work-related injuries as well as disabilities.”
Amazon disputed the conclusions from the 18-month investigation, saying the panel’s data was out of date and out of context but produced no contradictory evidence. Panel probers had to rely on workers’ testimony and federal documents. The workers came forward despite the risk of being fired.
Federal fines were no deterrent to Amazon driving its workers at a breakneck injurious pace. Amazon’s response to high injury rates are a key union talking point in the Teamsters organizing drive at the firm.
“OSHA’s maximum penalties are just over $16,000 for each serious violation,” the panel probers found. Even for a company like Amazon, which repeatedly violates federal regulations, these penalties amount to very little: OSHA’s proposed penalties for more than 50 violations included in citations to Amazon over a two-year period totaled less than $300,000. That is approximately 1% of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s total compensation in 2023.”
Sanders’s probers interviewed more than 130 Amazon workers and met with nearly 500 employees who shared 1,400 documents. The panel report concluded there is “extensive evidence of a corporate culture obsessed with speed and productivity” at Amazon.
“Amazon expects workers to move at unsafe rates and in unsafe conditions that cause workers to be injured far more frequently than they are at other warehouse,” the report said. A smaller report, from New York state three years ago, uncovered similar hazardous working conditions at warehouses there.
“Thousands of Amazon workers around the country have courageously united to take on one of the world’s most abusive employers. Amazon has a legal obligation to recognize the Teamsters and to start negotiating,” Teamsters President O’Brien said in a statement.
“The way Amazon treats its workers is un-American. Amazon’s so-called ‘leaders’ should treat their workers fairly—they just want to put food on the table for their families. Instead, Amazon executives risk ruining the holidays for their customers because of their addiction to putting profits over people.”
The ball is now in the company’s court for what happens next. The clock is ticking. The Teamsters said they will protect their members at all costs and are prepared to come after Amazon with the full force of the union to get the contract workers earned.
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