Amazon workers in NYC go on strike; how might it affect holiday deliveries?

MASPETH, QUEENS (PIX11) -- With less than a week of shopping days until Christmas, Amazon drivers have gone on strike at facilities nationwide, including in the New York metro area.

Some 10,000 workers are part of the effort, according to their union, the Teamsters. However, Amazon says that the numbers of workers involved is too small to affect holiday deliveries.

The strike was called at 6 a.m. on Thursday, at seven facilities across the country, including three in Southern California, and one each in Skokie, Illinois, near Chicago; Atlanta, Georgia; San Francisco; and in New York in Maspeth, Queens. 

Outside that distribution center on Thursday, the number of picketers fluctuated all day. What also fluctuated, but was certainly present were tensions between the 200 or so workers on the picket line, and hundreds more workers driving trucks and vans out of the facility on their way to deliveries.

The workers on strike said that they're trying to get the corporation to negotiate with the union in order to benefit everyone who works at the distribution site. 

Fleming Knight, an Amazon driver on the picket line, said that he and his colleagues are required to carry out strenuous work daily, for which they should be fairly compensated. 

"I'm bringing up cat litter and Evian water to the sixth floor [walk-up apartments]," he said. "Pay me compensatory for what I'm doing." 

"It's physically demanding, it's mentally demanding," he continued. "We are worth far more than $20 an hour."

Olivia Carter, another driver who was on strike, said that each work shift for her is strenuous, but without benefits to match the job's expectations. 

"350 Packages, 143 stops," she said was common in her workday. "You do 10 hours a day," she continued. "Your back hurts, your body hurts."

The point of the walkout, according to organizers with the Teamsters, is to affect the country's second largest company at its busiest time of year, and in the process force it to negotiate a contract. It has not. 

For its part, Amazon has said that some 1.5 million people work for the corporation, and that they more than make up for the 10,000 workers that the Teamsters say are on strike. 

In other words, Amazon says, its deliveries are going out, without interruption. That appeared to be the case at the Maspeth facility, called DBK4. 

Any possible attempt by strikers to stop the trucks from going out could result in an arrest. That's what happened two separate times along the picket line in Queens. 

Two different people were arrested by some of the dozens of police on scene on Thursday. One of the arrestees, a union organizer named Antonio Rosario, got a hero's welcome when he was released hours later. He received a desk appearance ticket on a disorderly conduct charge. 

Rosario said after his release that he was a union leader who'd worked for more than 25 years at UPS. He's now helping to organize Amazon workers and said that the latest UPS labor agreement, signed last summer, should serve as a template for the Amazon drivers. 

"At the end of the contract that we got," Rosario said, "the workers will be making $49 an hour." 

"We feel equal work for equal pay," he continued. "These Amazon workers do what we [UPS drivers] do." 

The Teamsters said that the newly called strike is part of a growing organizing effort at Amazon facilities.   

Vincent Perrone, the president of Teamsters Local 804, said that there are now 25 Amazon locations nationwide where workers have chosen to join the union. The first Amazon union formed at its JFK8 facility on Staten Island in April 2022. 

The Teamsters reported an "extension picket" at that facility on Thursday. 

In the two-and-a-half years since the union began there, the numbers of members nationwide has grown exponentially. 

Still, Perrone admitted that the numbers are less than 1% of all Amazon employees. 

"Yeah, it's a small group," he said, adding that the numbers continue to increase. "Six months from now," he continued, "it could be 60 Amazon locations. This is going to gain momentum."

Amazon, which calls the labor action a demonstration, and not a strike, issued a statement through a spokesperson: “For more than a year now," said Amazon's Kelly Nantel, "the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative. 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 union did not indicate how long Amazon workers will continue to remain on strike.