Los Angeles, Dec 19 (IANS) Amazon workers from many warehouses in the United States have announced a strike beginning Thursday after they failed to reach an agreement on labour negotiations with the online retail giant.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union representing 10,000 Amazon workers, said in an announcement on Wednesday night, US time, that the decision was made as the company refused to recognise their union and would not negotiate a fair contract.
The strikes will impact Amazon warehouses in New York City, Atlanta, San Francisco, Skokie, Illinois, and three other facilities in Southern California. Thousands of workers are estimated to be on strike.
Moreover, according to the local Press-Telegram newspaper based in Long Beach, California, Teamsters local unions would also put up picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide, Xinhua news agency reported.
Amazon warehouse workers and drivers without collective bargaining agreements have the legal right to honour these picket lines by withholding their labor, said the Teamsters’ statement.
The Teamsters, representing 1 percent of the 1 million full and part-time workers employed by the company in the U.S., said Amazon was given a “clear deadline” to come to the negotiating table and discuss “better working conditions and wages” for the unionized workers, but the company “ignored it.”
Amazon’s spokeswoman Eileen Hards said Wednesday evening in a statement that company employees had “always” had the choice whether to join a union or not and the company had offered what many unions requested, including competitive pay, health benefits on Day 1, and opportunities for career growth.
Business insiders predicted that the strike likely impacted the e-commerce giant’s operations during a key part of the holiday shopping season.
“What we learned from the pandemic is that any potential disruption can cause ripple effects up and down the supply chain,” University of Southern California associate professor Juan De Lara, who studies warehouse jobs, labor and unions, told CBS News Wednesday night.
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