Amazon staff in seven cities across US go on strike after company fails to negotiate, e-commerce giant says Christmas deliveries unaffected

Amazon has said deliveries are unaffected by a nationwide strike by US delivery drivers and warehouse workers that began on Thursday and continued through Friday.

The strikes follow an authorisation vote by members of the Teamsters union earlier in the week.

Workers at seven Amazon facilities across the country walked out and were joined by Teamsters members who do not work for Amazon.

Teamsters says it represents 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, but Amazon says there have been no elections or bargaining orders for the locations.

Labour dispute

The company has still not recognised its first-ever facility to vote to unionise in Staten Island in 2022.

The company has filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board and in September filed a federal lawsuit challenging the NLRB’s constitutionality.

The case, along with one filed by SpaceX, was heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in late November.

The strike is the largest ever to hit Amazon, but involves a small number of the more than 800,000 staff employed by the world’s second-largest private employer after Walmart.

The company operates more than 600 delivery facilities in the US, with some US cities having multiple delivery hubs.

Amazon has rejected calls by Teamsters to negotiate with drivers, saying drivers are employed by third-party logistics firms and are not its own staff.

Staff walked off their jobs in San Francisco, Atlanta, New York City and Skokie, Illinois, as well as facilities in City of Industry, Palmdale and Victorville on the West Coast.

‘Joint employer’

In October the NLRB filed a lawsuit against Amazon claiming the company is the joint employer of drivers working for logistics firms and has a legal obligation to negotiate with the Teamsters union.

In the City of Industry, outside Los Angeles, about 150 drivers and organisers picketed an Amazon distribution hub on Friday, the East Bay Times reported.

Large trucks waited to enter the facility as they were temporarily blocked by picketers, who chanted about the “greed” of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Amazon said Teamsters does not represent “thousands” of Amazon workers as it claims.

“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the company said in a statement.