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Amazon workers are on strike. Will your gifts arrive on time?

The strike – spanning seven facilities across the United States – is the largest against Amazon in U.S. history, according to the Teamsters. More are “prepared to join,” says the union, which represents nearly 10,000 workers at the online retailer.

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Stefan Jeremiah/AP/File
Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien (center) rallies with Amazon workers outside the Staten Island Amazon facility JFK8, June 19, 2024, in New York. Workers at seven Amazon facilities went on strike Dec. 19.
  • By Haleluya Hadero Associated Press

Workers at seven Amazon facilities went on strike Dec. 19, an effort by the Teamsters to pressure the e-commerce company for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.

The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized strikes in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect an impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.

At one warehouse, located in New York City’s Staten Island borough, thousands of workers voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.

The Amazon strike is the latest in a growing trend of union-led strikes, as Monitor economics writer Laurent Belsie reported in October for a story on the nationwide dockworkers strike:

Strikes can help make unions stronger

The strike represents a new assertiveness among unions, say labor economists and historians, from the rise of independent unions at places like Starbucks and Amazon to the big contract win by a newly aggressive United Auto Workers last year.... Major strikes can build support for unions. Widespread teacher strikes in 2018 managed, on the whole, to win parents’ support because the teachers lived in their communities, parents could identify with their struggles over low pay, and the community came to believe that the teachers’ demands would benefit its children, according to research by Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a political scientist at Columbia University in New York.

But strikes can also backfire if workers can’t connect with the public. 

The strikes happening Dec. 19 are taking place at one Amazon warehouse in San Francisco, California, and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City; Atlanta, Georgia, and Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join,” the union said.

“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.

The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.

Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, are not its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party business, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.

“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement.

The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer. Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. rose more than 1% before the opening bell Dec. 19.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.

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