Thousands of Amazon drivers have gone on strike in the holiday season

New York (CNN) — Amazon drivers went on strike in four states across the country with less than a week to go before Christmas – but the company is saying it’s not going to affect your holiday deliveries.

Members of the Teamsters union are striking at seven facilities across four states, and even though the Teamsters claim to represent 7,000 Amazon workers nationwide, that accounts for less than 1% of the company’s US workforce.

Beyond the usual labor complaints about wages and benefits, however, is that Amazon disputes that they’re Amazon employees at all, despite wearing Amazon vests, driving Amazon vans, and exclusively delivering Amazon packages.

“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,” said Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien, in a statement posted on X.

“We are struggling and fighting for basic benefits and needs that are otherwise an industry standard,” said driver Luke Cianciotto speaking to reporters outside the Skokie facility just before the start of the strike there. “Many of us, we don’t have any Christmas presents under the tree this year. The wages and hours we get working for Amazon simply aren’t enough to get by in today’s economy.”

Beyond saying that its shipments to customers will not be affected, Amazon’s statement emphasized its argument that the Teamsters do not represent anyone on the Amazon payroll. The National Labor Relations Board has only certified one group of Amazon workers as being in the union, and that location, on Staten Island, New York, is not yet on strike, despite authorizing one.

“There are a lot of nuances here but I want to be clear, the Teamsters don’t represent any Amazon employees despite their claims to the contrary,” said Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for Amazon, in a statement. “This entire narrative is a PR play and the Teamsters’ conduct this past year, and this week is illegal.”

Amazon claimed that many of those on picket lines around the country were Teamsters who came from other industries altogether.

“What you see here are almost entirely outsiders – not Amazon employees or partners – and the suggestion otherwise is just another lie from the Teamsters,” said Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hand. “The truth is that they were unable to get enough support from our employees and partners and have brought in outsiders to come and harass and intimidate our team, which is inappropriate and dangerous. We appreciate all our team’s great work to serve their customers and communities, and are continuing to focus on getting customers their holiday orders.”

CNN confirmed that some people on the picket lines were Teamsters from other industries. But having non-strikers on a picket line is not unusual during a strike and not necessarily a sign of efforts at intimidation.

The first location to be struck at 6 am ET Thursday was a facility in Queens. Then, an hour later, they were joined by workers in Skokie, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. At 9 am ET, the strike expanded to locations in Atlanta, San Francisco, Victorville, and the City of Industry, California.

The union has pointed to Amazon’s profits, which have soared, especially in recent years. Amazon reported a net income of $39.2 billion in the first nine months of this year, more than double for the same period of 2023, with revenue of $450.2 billion so far this year, making it the world’s second-largest private company behind only Walmart in terms of revenue.

“It’s no longer going to be packages over people, profit over people. It’s people over packages, people over profits,” said Ash’shura Brooks, another driver in Skokie speaking outside the facility.

It’s not clear how long the strike will last. Shorter strikes have grown in popularity in recent years, with occasionally great success, like the 2023 strike at healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente. That’s opposed to the more traditional, open-ended strikes that go on until a new labor deal is reached, as was the case with the recent strikes at Boeing, Big Three automakers, and Hollywood studios.

Working for Amazon, but not Amazon

Since the Teamsters say its members are on strike as Amazon refuses to even negotiate, and since Amazon said it does not recognize the union, an open-ended strike seems unlikely. All a union spokesperson said Thursday is that the strike would last more than one day.

But by striking the week before Christmas and Hanukkah, the Teamsters hope to apply maximum pressure on Amazon, and perhaps convince some of its customers to shop elsewhere for last-minute gifts.

At the locations on strike and set to strike Thursday, the union claims to represent drivers who work for an Amazon contractor. The union claims that under a rule announced by the NLRB, they can be considered to have joint employers — both the delivery service and Amazon. But Amazon and other business groups are challenging that rule.

Brooks and Cianciotto mocked the idea that they’re not Amazon employees, even though their immediate employer is a third-party contractor. Brooks called the claim by the company “heartbreaking… for Amazon to tell us we’re not Amazon drivers, when we wear Amazon vests and deliver in Amazon vans.”

Cianciotto said the use of third-party contractors is simply a way for Amazon to shed responsibility to negotiate with the drivers.

“These third-party contractors don’t exist without Amazon,” he said.

But the joint employer rule that the union is depending on to try to get a better deal for drivers is at risk of going away once President-elect Trump names a more business-friendly NLRB General Counsel and board members early next year.

An election certified, an election denied

But it’s not just drivers working for independent contractors which Amazon refuses to recognize as Teamsters members. Amazon shows no indication it is willing to reach a deal with the Teamsters or even recognizes that the union speaks for any of its workers, despite the union declaring that employees at numerous Amazon facilities have signed cards asking to join.

Unions typically win representation of workers by failing to hold elections overseen by the NLRB. While voluntary recognition of a union by an employer is allowed under labor law, it is relatively rare and seems virtually impossible in this case given Amazon’s stated positions. However, rather than seeking votes to win representation recognized by the NLRB, the union is demanding that Amazon recognize workers who have signed cards and are asking to join the union.

An upstart union, the Amazon Labor Union won such a vote at Amazon’s Staten Island facility in April 2022. And that vote was certified by the NLRB. But despite repeated setbacks in court, Amazon continues to fight the results of that election in further court appeals.

Other union representation votes have failed at other Amazon facilities before and since then. The ALU members voted in June to affiliate with the Teamsters, which is one of the nation’s largest and most powerful unions with 1.3 million members.

“Our employees have a choice of whether or not to join a union. They always have,” said Amazon’s Nantel. “We favor opportunities for each person to be respected and valued as an individual and to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team.” Amazon is on record saying it believes the 2022 election in Staten Island was not a level playing field and that the results certified by the NLRB do not accurately reflect the opinion of the workers at the facility.

The union did not announce a strike at the Staten Island warehouse, even though the union had previously announced a strike had been authorized by rank-and-file members there. The union did not immediately say why those members were not set to join the strike.

This story has been updated with additional reporting and context.