Workers at seven Amazon facilities are planning to go on strike on Thursday, according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The union is pressuring Amazon to agree to a labor contract during a busy shopping period. The Teamsters say Amazon missed a deadline for negotiations on December 15th, prompting the strike. Amazon, however, doesn’t expect any significant impact on its operations. The Teamsters represent about 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small fraction of the company’s total workforce of 1.5 million employees.
The strike will occur at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta, and Skokie, Illinois. Other Amazon workers are expected to join the strike as well. The Teamsters accuse Amazon of not showing respect to its workers and pushing them towards the picket line. Amazon has been challenging the union victory at a warehouse in Staten Island and arguing that delivery drivers are not its employees, but rather work for third-party businesses.
The Teamsters claim that Amazon exerts control over the drivers and should be considered their employer. Some labor regulators have supported the union’s arguments, leading Amazon to increase pay for the drivers. The ongoing dispute between Amazon and the Teamsters highlights the challenges of labor relations in the e-commerce industry.
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