About 100 Atlanta-area drivers who make deliveries for Amazon have voted to authorize a strike, joining thousands of workers in several U.S. cities who argue that the company has refused to negotiate with them for a contract.
The group — which operates many of the Amazon vans seen throughout metro Atlanta — several weeks ago signed cards to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, an effort, they said, to bargain with Amazon for a contract.
The Alpharetta facility is one of a number of locations nationally where Teamsters say they will strike against Amazon on Thursday. The union says Amazon has refused to bargain with workers who want higher pay and benefits. The drivers in Alpharetta make up a small portion of Amazon’s workforce in the Atlanta area.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a news release.
The strike authorization comes as the holiday season of package-ordering reaches a crescendo in the week before Christmas. However, Eileen Hards, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the $575 billion-a-year company is not worried about the timing of the threat.
“Historically, these protests have not impacted our operation or our ability to deliver for our customers,” she said.
O’Brien, president of the 121-year-old Teamsters union that represents about 1.3 million workers, issued a statement saying: “If Amazon Teamsters are forced onto the picket line, it’s because the company has failed its workforce.”
But Hards rejected the idea of negotiations as a “false narrative.”
Hards said the drivers are not Amazon employees, they work for a contractor and that the union is misleading the public. And that is a big part of the dispute between the two sides.
Amazon has historically fought union organizing efforts. Hards accused the Teamsters of using threats as an organizing tool in dealing with both Amazon employees and “third-party drivers.”
Kara Deniz, a Teamsters spokeswoman, said the situation is the reverse — it is the company that “threatens, intimidates, and coerces its workers.”. Almost 10,000 employees in 20 bargaining units have voted to join the union, she said.
Moreover, Amazon cannot pretend these are really independent contractors, Deniz said. “No matter how massive Amazon’s corporate PR machine is, they cannot fool the American public into believing drivers delivering Amazon packages in Amazon-branded vans don’t actually work for Amazon. No one believes this nonsense.”
The Alpharetta group works out of a facility run by ATOM Logistics.
The Teamsters last week filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board that names Amazon and ATOM Logistics as joint employers.
A message to ATOM Logistics was not immediately returned.
Alpharetta is the eighth Amazon-linked facility to authorize a strike, including locations in New York, Illinois and California, Deniz said. “Amazon is gaslighting the American public with their false narratives. Amazon workers have had enough and the Teamsters are ready to help them secure justice in their workplace.”
Amazon is currently fighting Teamsters campaigns by warehouse workers in San Francisco and delivery drivers in Queens, New York, and Victorville and City of Industry in California.
The union-Amazon tussle comes a month before a change in presidential administrations could mean a shift in government handling of such disputes.
President Joe Biden’s appointments have been pro-labor, including those to the National Labor Relations Board. But President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in January, courted union voters during the 2024 campaign, and won support of many blue-collar voters.
O’Brien, the Teamster president, spoke at the Republican National Convention in July.
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