Above Photo: Striking Teamster Amazon drivers extend picket lines to Atlanta facility. Fight Back! News.
Atlanta, Georgia – On July 26 Amazon workers and community members picketed ATL 6, the Atlanta Amazon Sortation Center. The Amazon drivers in Palmdale, CA extended picket lines to Atlanta as part of their unfair labor practice (ULP) strike against Amazon. The Palmdale Amazon Drivers voted to join Teamsters Local 396 earlier this year and ratified a contract shortly thereafter. Amazon responded to the workers forming a union by retaliating and terminating the newly organized drivers. As a result, the Drivers began their ULP strike.
“We’ve currently been on strike for over a month now since they cut our contract early because we unionized with the Teamsters,” said Jessie Moreno, one of the Palmdale Amazon drivers. “So now at this point we just need Amazon to recognize the union, negotiate and get our jobs back. To get that we need to obviously disrupt their operations in other locations, so they realize the Teamsters mean business, we mean business and it’s time for them to pay up and respect their workers.”
Amazon’s delivery service is performed by subcontracted Delivery Service Providers (DSP). While these DSPs are their own separate companies on paper, Amazon has total control over how they’re run and managed. The Palmdale drivers are the first DSP to organize in Amazon’s delivery network.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters launched a new Amazon Division in September of last year with the goal of organizing Amazon workers across the United States. Amazon was the third largest package delivery company in 2022, delivering over 4 billion packages in the U.S. alone. As the company continues to grow and expand its own delivery network and move away from using other delivery services like UPS and USPS, organizing Amazon has been seen as increasingly important for organized labor.
“For Teamsters and the labor movement as a whole, Amazon poses an existential threat to the rights and standards that our members have fought for and won for over 100 years,” said Randy Korgan, the Amazon Division director of the Teamsters.
The Palmdale drivers will continue to strike and extend picket lines until Amazon reinstates the drivers and recognizes their union contract.