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Thousands of Amazon (AMZN+2.39%) workers are threatening to strike during the busy holiday season as they demand that the largest online retailer in the U.S. begin negotiating with the union representing them.
Last week, some workers in New York represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters voted to authorize a strike if the company failed to agree to bargaining dates by Sunday. Now they’ve been joined by workers at an Illinois delivery station and drivers at two Amazon warehouses in Atlanta.
“It’s hellacious in there, it’s a battlefield every time you go into work,” Trent Knight, a driver at Amazon’s DGT8 facility, told Atlanta News First. “Especially from the drivers, we see how hard the warehouse guys are pushing and how disorganized it gets.”
The workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island became the first of the company’s warehouses to win a union election in March 2022. That remains the only successful union drive at an Amazon plant. In June, the group voted to join the Teamsters, establishing a local that represents some 5,500 warehouse workers at the facility.
Workers at JFK8 and Amazon’s DBK4 in Queens are pushing for better wages, benefits, and safer working conditions, according to the Teamsters. The union has been organizing workers at 10 Amazon facilities around the country, including in California and Georgia.
“The way Amazon treats its workers is un-American,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “Amazon’s so-called ‘leaders’ should treat their workers fairly — they just want to put food on the table for their families. Instead, Amazon executives risk ruining the holidays for their customers because of their addiction to putting profits over people.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont released a 160-report on Amazon’s labor practices on Monday. The report alleges that Amazon manipulates workplace injury data to make its warehouses appear safer than they actually are and that executives declined to implement recommendations that would help workers avoid injuring themselves in the name of meeting quotas.
The report also alleges that Amazon management instructs workers to “keep the line moving at all costs,” referring to conveyor belts in facilities, even if workers passed out. Although workers can hit emergency “stop” buttons on the belts, managers “often reprimand workers” for using them, the report said.
“Sen. Sanders’ report is wrong on the facts and weaves together out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a pre-conceived narrative that he and his allies have been pushing for the past 18 months,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement.