Workers at two Amazon warehouses in New York City are set to go on strike after the company failed to come to the bargaining table by a December 15 deadline. According to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), unionized employees at the JFK8 facility on Staten Island and the DBK4 depot in Queens voted “overwhelmingly” to authorize the strike in protest of “Amazon’s illegal refusal to recognize their union and negotiate a contract that addresses the company’s low wages and dangerous working conditions.”
Engadget has reached out to the Teamsters and the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) for more information on the strikes.
The JFK8 workers were the first to unionize at an Amazon warehouse in the US. They organized under the ALU, which partnered with the Teamsters this June. The union, now known as ALU-IBT Local 1, represents about 5,500 warehouse workers at JFK8.
“Our members are willing to do anything to get a contract,” Connor Spence, president of ALU-IBT Local 1, said in a statement. “While Amazon continues to disrespect us by refusing to listen to our concerns, our movement is only growing stronger.” As for DBK4 — which the Teamsters say is Amazon’s largest delivery station in NYC — workers there voted almost unanimously for strike authorization. Meanwhile, workers at the DIL7 delivery depot in Skokie, Illinois, also voted “overwhelmingly” to approve a strike.
The Teamsters represent hundreds of employees at that station. “Amazon is one of the greatest companies on Earth, but we are struggling to pay our bills,” DIL7 employee Riley Holzwarth said in a statement. Amazon has filed legal challenges against the union election victory at JFK8, but it has been unsuccessful in its attempts to overturn the results so far.
The company has appealed the National Labor Relations Board’s decision that decertified the union. As ABC News reported, workers claim Amazon is using these challenges as a tactic to illegally delay union contract negotiations.
“For more than a year, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public — claiming they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.’ They do not, and this is yet another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards told ABC News.
“The truth is that the Teamsters actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers into joining them, which is illegal and the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges.”
The news of the impending strike comes just after a Senate committee released a report regarding its investigation into safety at Amazon facilities. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions claimed the company ignored internal research indicating that its warehouses had high injury rates.