The signs that something unusual was afoot in Maspeth, Queens, on Monday morning could be seen even before reaching the hulking structure that is DBK4, Amazon’s delivery stations, where drivers load up their vans with packages for the New York metro area. As the sun rose over the industrial area, workers could be seen streaming toward the facility’s entrance, identifiable in blue Amazon-branded apparel and black-and-gold International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) bomber jackets, signs reading “Amazon is unfair” in hand.
At 6 a.m., the workers formed a picket line outside the warehouse, slowing the flow of goods out of DBK4, chanting and dancing and holding signs reading “Amazon is unfair.” It is one of seven active picket lines at Amazon facilities across the country: DGT8 in Atlanta, Georgia; DFX4, DAX5, and DAX8 in Southern California; DCK6 in San Francisco; and DIL7 in Skokie, Illinois are the others. At all of these locations, Amazon workers have unionized with the Teamsters.
The company has refused to bargain with the union, so the 1.3-million-strong IBT set a deadline: agree to bargain by December 15 or face an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike. When that date passed without movement on the company’s side, the Teamsters followed through on their promise. Additional Teamsters-affiliated Amazon workers — most notably those at the gigantic JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, which was the first Amazon warehouse in the United States to unionize as the Amazon Labor Union and whose workers have since voted to affiliate with the IBT — are expected to join the strike in the coming days. JFK8 in particular is set to join the strike at midnight.
The striking facilities represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of Amazon facilities dotting the country, but worker organizing must start somewhere. The smaller, more centrally located delivery stations are strategic targets for a movement that ultimately will need to…
Auteur: Alex N. Press
