Hundreds of Amazon drivers at a delivery station in Queens, New York, marched on their bosses today to announce they are joining the Teamsters. They are demanding the logistics giant recognize their union and negotiate a contract.
“To march today and walk in there with everyone behind us, all of us standing together as a union, it was so amazing,” said Latrice Shadae Johnson, who earns $20 an hour delivering packages for Amazon, where she has worked as a driver since last November.
What about Amazon’s managers? “They weren’t expecting it at all,” she said. “So when we walked in, they ran scared into a little hole, like a little corner that they could go around and they couldn’t be seen in. But we ran into the hole too!”
“They had no choice but to hear us,” she said. Workers followed the managers with phone cameras recording and papers in hand, surrounding them from all sides: “We were screaming and shouting out to let them know, we are here, and we want to be heard.”
More managers in orange vests came, “and they felt more at ease,” she said. Workers gave little speeches demanding recognition and sharing their workplace concerns, but the mood was so rowdy that workers overcome with the excitement were talking over each other, until they settled down and people took turns speaking.
This was the moment that Johnson and her coworkers had been organizing toward. They had planned for this march on the boss for months. Johnson said she drew strength from the indignation she’s suffered over the past year, from having to alternate from ambling to houses to galumphing up building stairs toting heavy packages alone because understaffing meant no one was coming to her aid if she requested support — a “rescue” in…
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Auteur: Luis Feliz Leon
