New York – The Teamsters union announced Friday that warehouse workers at a massive Amazon sorting and distribution center in Staten Island, New York, have joined the thousands of union members who began a strike this week against the online retail giant.
Despite Amazon’s insistence that the strike is not affecting shipments to customers, the union claims that the facility is a major one and has over 5,000 permanent hourly workers. The facility was also the first Amazon location where workers voted to join a union, with 55% of participants voting in favor of representation in April 2022.
The strike is part of a broader effort by the Teamsters and other unions to organize workers at Amazon, which employs over 740,000 people in the US across 1,000 warehouses and distribution centers. The company has a proven track record of profitability, earning $39.2 billion in the first nine months of the year.
The union has strong support among workers at the facility, with one worker, Valerie Strapoli, stating, “I am thrilled to be part of this fight. Amazon has shoved us around for so long, but we have the momentum now.”
The strike is expected to be a set-duration strike, not a traditional strike that shuts down production until a contract agreement is reached. Amazon continues to insist that the strike will not affect customers, citing its network infrastructure and contingency plans. However, the union is seeking to gain maximum attention for its organizing efforts and potentially cause some economic damage to the company.
This is not the only high-profile strike, as another one is underway at Starbucks, also seeking a limited-duration strike to pressure the company to reach the first labor deal for workers at over 500 stores.
