NEW YORK - Thousands of Amazon workers launched what they called the "largest strike against Amazon in US history" seeking to maximise pressure on the retail behemoth at the height of the holiday shopping season.
The job action targets seven Amazon facilities spaced around the United States. Workers on the pickets include Amazon employees who are affiliated with the Teamsters labor union and truckers who transport packages in and out of the facilities.
The move comes amid a Teamsters national organizing campaign at Amazon, which has long fought unionisation. The country's second-largest labor union had given Amazon until December 15 to agree to bargaining dates, pointing to progress in unionization campaigns around the United States.
In Germany, an affiliate of the union ver.di also initiated a stoppage at an Amazon facility in the western part of the country, saying it was operating in solidarity with the US union. The German union plans stoppages at eight other facilities involving 16,000 people through the end of 2024.
The Amazon DBK4 warehouse in New York continued operations Thursday, but the pickets "definitely slowed down" deliveries in and out of the facility, said Tony Rosciglione, treasurer of the Teamsters Local 804 in New York.
Rosciglione said there were about 300 people including union supporters on the picket line in Queens, where the union had signed up additional Amazon workers interested in joining the Teamsters, he told AFP in a phone interview.
Besides New York, workers will picket at facilities in Atlanta, southern California, San Francisco and Illinois, with other Amazon Teamsters "prepared to join them," the union said in a statement.
Teamsters boss Sean O'Brien told Fox Business key priorities for workers include solid wages, benefits and the upholding of work-safety standards.
"Collective bargaining is all about leverage, and this is our leverage," O'Brien told the broadcast. "This is our pinch point."
The Teamsters union says it represents some 10,000 workers, or less than one percent, at Amazon facilities around the country.