Unions have used work stoppages at Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) more than once in an attempt to improve pay and benefits. As recently as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, workers staged strikes in over 20 countries. Labor is about to hit the company again in the middle of the year’s busiest e-commerce shipping week.
The Strike
Teamsters target Staten Island shipping warehouse.
The huge Teamsters union, the largest union in America, represents a portion of Amazon’s workers. However, the union does not have a large enough presence to hamper its business nationwide, but it has a presence in key locations. Among these is the shipping warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island.
The company has downplayed a potential labor action as an inconvenience. But, this may not be true. According to CNN, “It’s also a sign that organized labor is trying new strategies to represent workers at Amazon, America’s second largest private sector employer.”
The Teamster strategy is twofold. The first part is an attempt to negotiate a deal directly with the company. The other is to shame Amazon in public. Part of this public aspect is statements that include the company’s unwillingness to pay workers enough to “put food on the table.”
Amazon has claimed that some of the workers involved in the potential labor stoppage cannot be members of the Teamsters because they are parts of other labor negotiations. An NLRB ruling appears to state otherwise.
A union action could spread if management will not talk to labor at the Staten Island facility. According to The Guardian, “Thousands of Amazon workers are gearing up to strike from Thursday, days before Christmas, over the tech giant’s refusal to begin negotiations over a contract.”
Amazon’s e-commerce revenue is most at risk during the holiday season. Labor means hitting Amazon as hard as possible before those holidays end.
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