By Alina Selyukh
Amazon faced a coordinated picket effort as drivers and warehouse workers at multiple locations around the U.S. on Thursday pressed the retail giant to recognize their unions.
The campaign launched by the Teamsters union comes during the holiday-shopping rush, though Amazon says it has not affected operations.
The union had said workers would strike at seven locations in major delivery hubs: around the cities of New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco and that it had organized the “largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history.”
By the afternoon, according to NPR’s reporters and media photos, picketers at some of the locations numbered in the dozens. Other workers appeared to continue their work day as usual; vans and trucks arrived and left.
The strikes are part of a new push by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to get Amazon to negotiate a collective-bargaining agreement with its unionized workers for better pay, benefits, workplace safety and other conditions.
Workers demand Amazon recognize unions
Outside the Amazon facility in Alpharetta, Ga., about two dozen people in fluorescent yellow vests marched and chanted, as delivery trucks and vans continued to enter and exit the facility. Gregory Dunn, 29, who’s worked as a delivery driver for about a year, said he hoped some of those drivers would join the picket line.
“I may look like a needle in a haystack, but we all fighting for the same thing,” Dunn said. “I’m fighting for all my brothers sisters out here. They may not see the vision now, but they will see the vision soon.”
In Queens, N.Y., over a hundred Amazon drivers and labor organizers rallied by a warehouse. A delivery driver who did not participate in the strike crossed the picket line to head out on his shift. “I’m proud of you,” he shouted to his striking colleagues.