“Amazon clearly has developed a strategy of ignoring their workers’ rights to collectively organize and negotiate,” said Benjamin Sachs, a Harvard Law School professor of labor and industry.
He noted that more than two years after workers at a Staten Island warehouse became the
first in the United States to vote to unionize, Amazon still has not recognized the group.
Amazon, which has said it prefers direct relationships with workers, has challenged union drives while saying workers have the right to organize.
The company has filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over the 2022 Staten Island election, alleging bias among agency officials, among other issues. Further, Amazon challenged the constitutionality of the NLRB itself in a
September federal lawsuit.
The Seattle-based company has also said the Teamsters "attempted to coerce" workers illegally to join the union.
The Teamsters said the Staten Island warehouse could join the strike at any time, as well as another southern California facility that had earlier voted to join the walkout.
Amazon is unlikely, at least initially, to come to the table with the Teamsters because there is little legal pressure to do so, said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociology professor at Washington University in St. Louis who has studied unions. He noted that there has been no apparent penalty to Amazon for ignoring the Staten Island workers' demands.
"It's been a very successful strategy, the work continues there and there is still no contract," said Rosenfeld.
In recent years, Amazon.com has faced worker walkouts in Spain and Germany, among other regions, over pay and working conditions.
As the world's second-largest private employer after Walmart , Amazon has long been a target for unions. Some workers have said Amazon's emphasis on greater speed and efficiency can lead to injuries, while Amazon has said it pays industry-leading wages and regularly introduces automation designed to reduce repetitive stress.
The company will face other union actions in the months ahead. Workers at a Philadelphia Whole Foods in November filed to hold a union election, the first since Amazon acquired the grocery chain in 2017.
Last month, an administrative judge ordered a
third union election at an Alabama warehouse after ruling Amazon had acted unlawfully to thwart unionization there.
Earlier this year, Amazon announced a
$2.1 billion investment to raise pay for fulfillment and transportation employees in the U.S., increasing base wages for employees by at least $1.50 to around $22 per hour, a roughly 7% increase.
Source: Reuters