Tracking that Amazon package? It may be delayed by a labor dispute.
As the holiday shipping rush hits the home stretch, hundreds of workers at an Amazon delivery station in Skokie have voted to authorize a strike in an effort to reach their first union labor contract with the online retailing giant.
The delivery drivers, who began organizing in June to join the Teamsters union, gave Amazon a Dec. 15 deadline to negotiate an agreement, seeking higher wages, benefits and improved workplace safety.
Amazon has refused to recognize the fledgling union affiliation at the Skokie delivery station, one of 10 facilities nationwide to join the Teamsters as part of a growing labor movement. The Skokie vote follows similar actions at two New York facilities, where workers authorized a strike Friday against Amazon.
“Amazon is one of the biggest companies on Earth, but we are struggling to pay our bills,” Riley Holzworth, a worker at the Skokie facility, said in a news release Monday. “Other workers are seeing our example and joining our movement, because we are only going to get the treatment we deserve if we fight for it.”
A majority of the workers at the Skokie delivery station signed union authorization cards with Teamsters Local 705 over the summer. They joined thousands of workers at facilities in California, New York and Georgia that have unionized with the Teamsters seeking an inaugural labor contract with Amazon. The Teamsters say that Amazon has illegally refused to recognize their union and come to the bargaining table.
Amazon contends that the subcontracted workers, who drive for third-party companies to deliver the packages, are not eligible for union representation in labor negotiations.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’,” Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said in a statement Monday. “They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative about the independent small businesses who deliver on our behalf.”
In response, a Teamsters spokesperson said in an email Monday that Amazon is “gaslighting” the American public while “unleashing union busters to swarm facilities” and intimidate workers.
The Amazon union movement started in March 2022, when workers at a large Staten Island warehouse became the first in the U.S. to join the Teamsters. On Friday, those workers again led the way when they voted to authorize a strike against Amazon.
The 10 unionized Amazon locations are in Staten Island and Queens, New York; Palmdale, San Francisco, Victorville, City of Industry and San Bernardino, California; two Atlanta facilities and the Skokie delivery station.
For the hundreds of workers at the delivery facility on West Howard Street in Skokie, the threat to walk off the job during peak holiday season would not only delay orders for customers, but also deliver a message to Amazon that it needs to recognize the union in labor negotiations.
“The ball is in Amazon’s court,” Juan Campos, secretary-treasurer of Local 705, said in the news release. “If they keep breaking the law, they will face the consequences.”
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
