About 100 Atlanta area drivers who make deliveries for Amazon have voted to authorize a strike, joining thousands of workers in several U.S. cities who argue that the company has refused to negotiate with them for a contract.
The group — which operates many of the Amazon vans seen throughout metro Atlanta — several weeks ago signed cards to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in an effort, they said, to bargain with Amazon for better pay and benefits.
Midday Thursday, about 30 people picketed outside an Amazon facility in Alpharetta. Neither the Teamsters nor workers have yet expressed many specific demands of the company.
The drivers in Alpharetta make up a small portion of Amazon’s workforce in the Atlanta area.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a news release.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
The strike authorization comes as the holiday season of package-ordering reaches a crescendo in the week before Christmas. However, Eileen Hards, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the $575 billion-a-year company is not worried about the timing of the threat.
“Historically, these protests have not impacted our operation or our ability to deliver for our customers,” she said.
O’Brien, president of the 121-year-old Teamsters union that represents about 1.3 million workers, issued a statement saying: “If Amazon Teamsters are forced onto the picket line, it’s because the company has failed its workforce.”
But Hards rejected the idea of negotiations as a “false narrative.”
Hards said the drivers are not Amazon employees; they work for contractors and that the union is misleading the public. And that is a big part of the dispute between the two sides.
Amazon has historically fought union organizing efforts. Hards accused the Teamsters of using threats as an organizing tool in dealing with both Amazon employees and “third-party drivers.”
Kara Deniz, a Teamsters spokeswoman, said the situation is the reverse — it is the company that “threatens, intimidates and coerces its workers.” Almost 10,000 employees in 20 bargaining units have voted to join the union, she said.
Moreover, Amazon cannot pretend these are really independent contractors, Deniz said. “No matter how massive Amazon’s corporate PR machine is, they cannot fool the American public into believing drivers delivering Amazon packages in Amazon-branded vans don’t actually work for Amazon. No one believes this nonsense.”
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
The Alpharetta group works directly for either ATOM Logistics or Blue Cardinal Logistics, which both operate from that facility.
The Teamsters last week filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board that names Amazon and ATOM Logistics as joint employers.
Messages to ATOM Logistics and to Blue Cardinal Logistics were not immediately returned.
Outside the Alpharetta facility, some held signs that read, “Amazon, obey the law,” an apparent reference to the union’s contention that the company is required to bargain. Others gathered under a small tent scooping lunch from aluminum containers.
Aaron Nipper, 25, said he’d been a driver for Blue Cardinal Logistics for two years. He said he was fired a few weeks ago for being part of union organizing. He has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that the termination was an unfair labor practice and asking for reinstatement.
“We just want to be paid what we’re worth,” he said. “The amount we’re paid, we’re not competing with UPS, we’re not even competing with FedEx.”
Drivers are now paid about $21 or $22 an hour, he said, getting a modest raise earlier this year when the companies caught wind of the Teamster organizing campaign.
Drivers often work 10 or 12 hours in a day while making well over 100 stops to make deliveries, Nipper said. “And they try hard not to pay you any overtime.”
Alpharetta is the eighth Amazon-linked facility to authorize a strike, including locations in New York, Illinois and California, Deniz said. “Amazon is gaslighting the American public with their false narratives. Amazon workers have had enough and the Teamsters are ready to help them secure justice in their workplace.”
Amazon is currently fighting Teamsters campaigns by warehouse workers in San Francisco and delivery drivers in Queens, New York, and Victorville and City of Industry in California.
The union-Amazon tussle comes a month before a change in presidential administrations could mean a shift in government handling of such disputes.
President Joe Biden’s appointments have been pro-labor, including those to the National Labor Relations Board. But President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in January, courted union voters during the 2024 campaign and won support of many blue-collar voters.
O’Brien, the Teamster president, spoke at the Republican National Convention in July.
Walking the picket line Thursday was Brian Raper, who said he retired from UPS after 35 years as a union driver. He said he was there to support a movement “that is in its infancy.”
Union contracts are needed to allow other workers a decent lifestyle and retirement, said Raper, who is 54. “They don’t get benefits. They don’t have insurance. And Amazon is where UPS would be without a union.”
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