By
Reuters
Printed
December 19, 2024
Stress is constructing on Amazon.com to come back to the bargaining desk with the Teamsters union as 1000’s of employees threaten to strike in the course of the retailer’s busy vacation promoting season.
Reuters
Employees in New York Metropolis, southern California and Skokie, Illinois, voted in current days to authorize a strike ought to Amazon fail to cut price with the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters. On Wednesday, the union mentioned employees at Amazon amenities in Atlanta and in San Francisco joined in favor of placing.The union has threatened to name a walkout at any time.
The Teamsters, which declare to symbolize 10,000 U.S. Amazon employees at 10 amenities, have mentioned Amazon has ignored their requests to satisfy to achieve a contract, regardless of setting a December 15 deadline.
With over 700,000 employees at round 1,000 warehouses scattered across the U.S., a strike is unlikely to cripple Amazon’s operations, however such a walkout within the closing few days earlier than Christmas may create provide chain hiccups and ship a sign that the Teamsters intend to inflict monetary hurt.
Nonetheless, say consultants, Amazon would doubtless be unwilling to satisfy or negotiate with the Teamsters because it may open the door to additional organizing efforts.
“Amazon clearly has developed a strategy of ignoring their workers’ rights to collectively organize and negotiate,” mentioned Benjamin Sachs, a Harvard Regulation College professor of labor and {industry}. He famous that greater than two years have elapsed since employees in Staten Island efficiently voted to turn out to be the primary U.S. warehouse to unionize and the corporate has but to acknowledge them.
An Amazon spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The Seattle-based firm has beforehand mentioned the Teamsters “attempted to coerce” employees illegally to hitch the union and that the union doesn’t symbolize as many Amazon staff because it claims.
Amazon has efficiently resisted a number of unionization drives over time, together with a failed 2021 vote at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, that’s nonetheless being contested. An administrative decide final month ordered a third union election in Bessemer after ruling Amazon had acted unlawfully to thwart the vote there.
Employees have mentioned Amazon’s emphasis on ever larger velocity and effectivity can result in accidents, whereas the corporate has mentioned it pays industry-leading wages and recurrently introduces automation designed to chop down on repetitive stress. Having to face union calls for may make it more durable for Amazon to rent and fireplace warehouse employees and lift prices to make use of them.
“Anything Amazon might do to acknowledge these workers gets them that much closer to having unions and they have very publicly resisted that,” mentioned Jake Rosenfeld, a sociology professor at Washington College in St. Louis who has studied unions. “By every indication they want absolutely nothing to do with unionization.”
A spokesperson for the Teamsters mentioned the group has not obtained any outreach from Amazon.
Sachs and Rosenfeld mentioned Amazon’s multi-year delay in negotiating with its first union at a warehouse on Staten Island confirmed the weaknesses in labor legislation. “It’s been a very successful strategy, the work continues there and there is still no contract,” mentioned Rosenfeld.
Amazon, nevertheless, has not been idle. It filed its personal objections with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board over the Bessemer union election, alleging bias amongst company officers, amongst different points. And the corporate has challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB itself in a September federal lawsuit.
John Logan, a San Francisco State College professor of labor and employment research, mentioned a strike earlier than Christmas will be the Teamsters’ final alternative to make an impression earlier than anticipated modifications to labor legislation below the incoming Trump administration.
“Even a smaller strike could cause some inconvenience for Amazon,” he mentioned.
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