The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union that represents 1.4 million workers, is setting its sights on Amazon
By JOSEPH PISANI, AP Retail Writer
June 23, 2021, 11:29 PM
• 4 min read
NEW YORK — The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union representing 1.4 million workers, is setting its sights on Amazon. On Thursday, it will vote on whether to prioritize organizing Amazon workers. The Teamsters accuse the nation’s second-largest private employer of exploiting employees by paying them low wages, pushing them to work at fast speeds, and offering no job security. “There is no clearer example of how America is failing the working class than Amazon,” says the resolution that will be voted on by representatives from 500 Teamsters local unions Thursday.
The resolution is expected to be approved and would allow the Teamsters to “fully fund and support” efforts to unionize Amazon workers and create a division to aid them and “protect the standards in our industries from the existential threat that is Amazon.” It declined to say how much money it would spend on the efforts. Any attempt to unionize Amazon is likely to be an uphill battle. None has been successful in the company’s 26-year history, including the most recent one at an Alabama warehouse where workers overwhelmingly voted against joining a union.
But the Teamsters said they would try a different strategy. Randy Korgan, the Teamsters’ National Director for Amazon, wrote in Salon earlier this month that unionizing one facility at a time doesn’t work because companies like Amazon have the money and legal resources to squash those efforts from the inside. Instead, Korgan wrote that organizing Amazon workers will take “shop-floor militancy,” such as strikes in warehouses and city streets. Amazon didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
The online shopping behemoth had pushed hard against unionizing efforts at the warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. According to one worker who testified at a Senate hearing, it hung anti-union signs throughout the warehouse, including inside bathroom stalls, and held mandatory meetings to convince workers why the block was a bad idea. Amazon argued that it paid workers at least $15 an hour and already offered the benefits unions want.
When the votes were counted in April, nearly 71% of the 2,500 valid ballots rejected a union. The organizing in Bessemer was led by the New York-based Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, representing 100,000 workers at poultry plants, cereal, and soda bottling facilities, and retailers such as Macy’s and H&M. The Teamsters are much more significant. The union had existed since the early 1900s when horse-drawn wagons delivered goods. It now represents 1.4 million truckers, UPS employees, and other workers, including nurses and warehouse mechanics.
“They’re a strong, successful union,” said Alex Colvin, the dean of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. They added the Amazon workers reflect the type of members it already represents. “They’re a formidable adversary for Amazon to face.” The Teamsters target workers in Amazon’s fast-growing delivery network, such as drivers and warehouse workers who pack and ship orders. Seattle-based Amazon has been working to deliver most of its packages in the past couple of years and relies less on UPS, the U.S. Postal Service, and other carriers.
The Teamsters said in its resolution that Amazon’s delivery network had become a dominant force in the logistics industry in a short amount of time. How it treats workers could threaten the working standards it has set at UPS and another parcel, freight, and delivery companies. It has built several package-sorting hubs at airports, opened warehouses closer to where shoppers live, and launched a program that lets contractors start businesses delivering packages in vans stamped with the Amazon logo. In January, it bought 11 jets that it plans to use to give orders to shoppers faster.
