Largest Amazon Strike In U.S. History Underway Days Before Christmas

CALIFORNIA — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters launched the largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history Thursday morning at facilities in four states, including several in California, according to the union, which claims the online retail giant has repeatedly refused to bargain with workers.

“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a news release.

Workers joined the picket line from facilities in San Francisco, Southern California, New York City, Atlanta and Skokie, Illinois, according to the union.

Eddie Rodriguez, a teamster with Local 848 based in Long Beach, said he joined the picket line in San Bernardino County in solidarity with Amazon's contract employees who have no benefits and are treated as disposable unlike the Teamsters.

"We know we are not going to work forever," he said. "We've got a pension. At the end of the day, we're gonna go and retire, you know, and we have medical to take care of our kids. And that's just going to the table and negotiating with these companies that have the money to do it, and the teamsters get together, and they go to the table, and they talk to these people, and they put it together, and they let them know that they are nothing without the American worker."

Rodriguez said he expects the strike will affect Amazon's holiday shoppers.

"It might be some late packages," he said. "But it's going to get Amazon's attention that these employees, American workers, mean business and they want change."

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. The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized strikes in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union set for contract negotiations.

Teamsters local unions are also putting up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon fulfillment centers nationwide, according to the union, which added Amazon warehouse workers and drivers without collective bargaining agreements have the legal right to honor the picket lines by withholding labor.

Operations at affected Amazon facilities in California include:

• DFX4 located at 15272 Bear Valley Road, Victorville;
• DAX5 located at 15930 Valley Blvd., Industry;
• DAX8 located at 600 W. Technology Drive, Palmdale; and
• KSBD air hub located at the San Bernardino International Airport

Amazon says it doesn’t expect an impact on its operations during the strike.

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 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 a third-party business, called Delivery Service Partners, and 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 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."

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.

"The corporate elitists who run Amazon are leaving workers with no choice," O'Brien, the teamsters president, said.

"Greedy executives are pushing thousands of hardworking Americans to the brink," he continued. "Amazon rakes in more money than anybody, they subject workers to injury and abuse at every turn, and they illegally claim not to be the rightful employer of nearly half their workforce."

Patch staffer Renee Schiavone and The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this story.