Amazon workers organized under the Teamsters union went on strike less than a week before Christmas.
Amazon Teamsters at seven facilities in Skokie, Illinois; New York City; Atlanta; San Francisco; and Southern California are participating in the “largest strike” against the trillion-dollar company in American history, the union said in a news release.
Fox Business reports that workers at other facilities are prepared to join them.
Despite Teamsters’ claims to represent about 10,000 people across 10 Amazon facilities in the U.S., the company doesn’t recognize workers’ affiliation with the union.
Amazon says the Teamsters union is “intentionally [misleading] the public” because they don’t represent Amazon employees and drivers, company spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement to Fox Business.
“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,” Nantel said. “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.”
Nantel also said the company “does not expect any impact on our operations.”
Teamsters spokesperson Kara Deniz responded to Amazon, accusing the company of “gaslighting the American public with their false narratives.”
“The truth is, over 20 bargaining units, representing nearly 9,000 employees have successfully organized because for many years the company has exploited and abused workers, and these workers are fed up and fighting back,” Deniz said.
“No matter how massive Amazon’s corporate PR machine is, they cannot fool the American public into believing drivers delivering Amazon packages in Amazon-branded vans don’t actually work for Amazon,” Deniz continued. “No one believes this nonsense. Amazon needs to stop avoiding their legal obligation to these workers and get to the bargaining table now.”
The strike comes after Teamsters said Amazon ignored the union’s Dec. 15 deadline to negotiate new contracts for higher wages, better benefits, and safer work conditions.
Amazon Fulfillment Centers across the country will have primary picket lines set up by local unions, Teamsters said, and warehouse workers and drivers without collective bargaining agreements can legally honor them by withholding their labor.
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If the demokrats don’t get you then the unions will.
If the workers in question actually strike, that would indicate the union DOES represent them, regardless of what Amazon claims.
Note: I believe a company should have the right to IGNORE a union, but that is not the same as the employees not being in a union.
While I was in college, I worked for a company that had the Teamsters representing the workers. The representation was a joke. The Teamsters took 15% of my salary as union dues and I saw no benefits whatsoever coming my way. In addition, the salaries were paltry. Several years later, I went to work, as a part-time student, for the university, which had no union, and I made more money per hour there than I did with my union job (and I paid no union dues). Lastly, the son of the union leader was in the same high school class as me and he lived in a new house and he was one of the sharpest dressers in school. The Teamsters Union is a joke and the workers at Amazon will soon learn that having the Teamsters represent them will not be to their benefit.