Another crack in the Amazon empire

SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky.—Another crack in the Amazon empire has been exposed. This time, in a breakthrough for workers across the world trying to organize the notoriously anti-union monopoly, Amazon CDL drivers at the SDF9 warehouse here have become the first company tractor-trailer drivers nationwide to organize with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The drivers, part of the Amazon Transportation Operations Management (TOM) Team, voted to join Teamsters Local 89 after a year of clandestine organizing to shield their campaign from the company’s well-documented, multi-million-dollar union-busting apparatus. Last week, the workers marched on the boss at SDF9 to demand union recognition with the Teamsters and better working conditions at the facility.

The campaign demonstrates that worker resistance at Amazon is spreading from its warehouses to the very arteries of its logistics empire. By organizing the drivers who move freight between Amazon facilities, workers have struck a blow at a critical point in the company’s exploitative supply chain. 

Across the country, more organizing campaigns at Amazon were launched in North Carolina by Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (CAUSE), an independent union formation organizing warehouses across the state. That union held elections earlier this year at the RDU1 facility in Garner, NC, but wasn’t able to secure the victory this time around.

Despite the loss, one CAUSE activist told People’s World, the campaign proved that workers are willing to struggle for their rights on the job and are not giving up the fight. “We didn’t lose… we learned,” said CAUSE President Reverend Ryan Brown. The latest batch of organizing campaigns was publicly launched at several Durham facilities earlier this month—RDU5, the delivery station; DRT8, the same-day delivery station SNC3; and the large loads fulfillment site HRD2.

Back in Kentucky, Randy Korgan, Director of the Teamsters Amazon Division, said that “Amazon workers across the country will not accept crumbs from a multitrillion-dollar company that disrespects them.

“TOM Team drivers at SDF9 are setting a game-changing precedent for others to follow.”

The Kentucky drivers are fighting for industry-standard pay, improved working conditions, and an end to the company’s arbitrary and punishing anti-worker policies.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in a warehouse or driving a truck, Amazon treats all its workers as disposable,” said Jeffrey King, a TOM Team driver at SDF9. “We are ready to take this fight across the country and make Amazon understand the strength of worker power.”

The victory in Kentucky is just one part of the broader movement led by workers all over the country to confront the Amazon empire, one that the Teamsters describe as an “existential threat” to workers’ standards. The fight is particularly concentrated in Kentucky, where Local 89 is also organizing the strategically vital KCVG air hub, the largest in Amazon’s network.

The Teamsters warned that Amazon’s monopoly position and “exponential growth and ever-expanding power will dramatically erode the shipping industry standards that Teamsters have spent decades fighting for.”

The ongoing militant movement to organize Amazon, no matter the location or job, is a testament to the power of sustained, collective action. It proves to workers toiling at Amazon everywhere that even the most powerful corporations can be challenged when the working class comes together and unites in its own interests against the capitalist class’s rampant corporate greed and profiteering.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today.