Amazon Employees Initiate Strikes Across Several Warehouses in the USA
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Los Angeles, Dec 19 (NationPress) Employees at numerous Amazon warehouses throughout the United States have declared a strike commencing on Thursday due to unsuccessful labor negotiations with the online retail giant.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing 10,000 Amazon employees, announced on Wednesday night, U.S. time, that this action was taken because the company would not acknowledge their union and failed to negotiate a fair contract.
The strikes will affect Amazon facilities in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, Skokie, Illinois, and three additional sites in Southern California. It is estimated that thousands of workers will participate in the strike.
Additionally, as reported by the local Press-Telegram newspaper in Long Beach, California, local Teamsters unions plan to establish picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers across the nation, according to the Xinhua news agency.
Amazon warehouse workers and drivers lacking collective bargaining agreements are legally permitted to support these picket lines by withholding their labor, as stated by the Teamsters.
The Teamsters, representing 1 percent of the 1 million full- and part-time employees at the company in the U.S., indicated that Amazon was given a clear deadline to engage in negotiations for better working conditions and wages for union members, but the company ignored it.
In response, Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards asserted on Wednesday evening that the company’s employees have always had the choice to join a union and emphasized that they had provided what many unions have requested, including competitive pay, health benefits from Day 1, and opportunities for career advancement.
Industry experts anticipate that the strike could disrupt the operations of the e-commerce giant during a critical period of the holiday shopping season.
“The lessons learned from the pandemic indicate that any potential disruption can result in ripple effects throughout the supply chain,” stated Juan De Lara, an associate professor at the University of Southern California who focuses on warehouse jobs, labor, and unions, in an interview with CBS News on Wednesday night.
