Teamsters union says employees in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco to stroll off the job over pay and situations.
Hundreds of Amazon staff in the USA are set to go on strike throughout the busy Christmas interval after union officers accused the retailer of refusing to enter negotiations for higher pay and situations.
The Teamsters union stated on Wednesday that warehouse employees would be part of the picket line in cities together with New York, Atlanta and San Francisco from 6am Japanese Time (11:00 GMT) on Thursday within the largest strike in opposition to the corporate in US historical past.
“In case your package deal is delayed throughout the holidays, you possibly can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a transparent deadline to return to the desk and do proper by our members. They ignored it,” Teamsters Basic President Sean M O’Brien stated in an announcement.
“These grasping executives had each probability to point out decency and respect for the individuals who make their obscene income doable. As an alternative, they’ve pushed employees to the restrict and now they’re paying the worth. This strike is on them.”
Teamsters, one of many greatest unions in North America, claims to symbolize about 10,000 Amazon employees among the many retail big’s roughly 800,000-strong US workforce.
Amazon disputes the union’s declare to symbolize any of its staff and says its conduct is against the law.
“For greater than a yr now, the Teamsters have continued to deliberately mislead the general public – claiming that they symbolize ‘1000’s of Amazon staff and drivers’. They don’t, and that is one other try and push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel instructed Al Jazeera.
“The reality is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and tried to coerce Amazon staff and third-party drivers to hitch them, which is against the law and is the topic of a number of pending unfair labour apply fees in opposition to the union.”
Amazon, the world’s second-biggest personal employer after Walmart, has for years confronted accusations that it places income above secure situations at its services.
A US Senate committee earlier this week launched the findings of an 18-month investigation that discovered the corporate pushes its warehouse employees to fulfil orders at speeds that might trigger excessive charges of harm.
Amazon stated the report was “mistaken on the details and options selective, outdated data that lacks context and isn’t grounded in actuality”.
Final month, Amazon employees in additional than 20 international locations, together with the US and the UK, introduced a “Make Amazon Pay” marketing campaign of protests and strike motion aimed toward elevating consciousness about labour abuses and environmental degradation.
