NEW YORK—In a one-two punch that sent shockwaves through C-Suites, Amazon’s embattled workers—many suffering from abominably low pay and facing a company threat to replace 600,000 warehouse workers with robots—won two major victories in their long war to organize the e-commerce monopoly.
First, on March 31, a National Labor Relations Board mediator convinced the firm to not retaliate against any of them, nationwide, who exercise their right to strike. That win cheered the Amazon Labor Union, originally independent but now affiliated with the Teamsters, who announced the victory. ALU-IBT Local 1 has been the cornerstone of the large union’s organizing drive at the monster warehouse and retailer.
Then, just one day later, the NLRB ruled that Amazon illegally refused to recognize ALU-IBT Local 1 and ordered them to begin negotiations with the union.
Taken together, the two rulings represent the most significant setbacks Amazon has faced in their unruly profiteering since the JFK8 warehouse workers made history on April 1, 2022—four years ago to the day of the NLRB’s recognition ruling.
Forced to bargaining table
More than 5,000 warehouse workers at the JFK8 facility in Staten Island organized their union on that April day in 2022, having had enough of the abhorrent working conditions and management retaliations, and inspired by reading Organizing Methods in the Steel Industry, by Communist and labor organizer William Z. Foster.
In June 2024, they officially affiliated with the Teamsters, which then chartered ALU-IBT Local 1.
According to the Teamsters, over the past four years, the NLRB repeatedly found that Amazon illegally and willfully ignored the union’s legitimacy while attempting to coerce JFK8 Teamsters into ending their organizing efforts. With this week’s ruling, Amazon appears to have exhausted its options to appeal to the NLRB on the issue of organizing the union at the facility.
“Four years ago, Amazon workers at JFK8 won an NLRB election. Now, on this monumental anniversary, they have become the first group ever to force the company to recognize their union, and they did so as Teamsters,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien.
“This fight is far from over, but this ruling from the NLRB is an historic victory for Amazon Teamsters nationwide and a testament to worker power.”
“Amazon’s strategy these last few years has been to delay, delay, delay—and the NLRB confirmed it because the law is not on their side,” said Randy Korgan, Director of the Teamsters Amazon Division.
Restores rights of strikers
The separate settlement on striking workers’ rights is equally significant—and its reach extends far beyond Staten Island.
Here’s what Amazon was doing: deducting so-called “Unpaid Time” (UPT) from workers who went on strike. That’s a way of saying the company punished workers for exercising a fundamental labor right.
UPT functions as a bank of hours that Amazon workers can use for unscheduled leave and emergencies. The company effectively uses it as an attendance policy, and management can terminate workers when they run out. In other words, exercise your right to strike and you risk your job.
In December 2024, Amazon Teamsters struck more than 200 of Amazon’s facilities in over 20 states at the height of the holiday shipping and shopping season. Last year, the NLRB ruled that Amazon had illegally taken striking workers’ UPT.
Now, under the settlement, Amazon is forced to restore the illegally deducted time to impacted workers as well as to ensure all Amazon workers can strike in the future without losing their UPT. The settlement covers all of Amazon’s facilities nationwide and Amazon is required to post a notice to workers informing them of their rights.
A notice. From Amazon. Admitting workers have rights. That’s how you know the bosses are hurting.
The win will not actually bring new money to the workers, the Teamsters said. It will prevent Amazon from docking workers by forcing them to use their unpaid time off if they want to go out on strike.
The right to strike, of course, is the ultimate form of “self-help” workers can exercise against recalcitrant, obstinate, or law-breaking bosses. Yanking the time off for strikers cut into that right.
The settlement covers workers at all 1,300 Amazon warehouses nationwide, not just those who walked out. Estimates of those numbers range from 600 to several thousand. The Teamsters claim to have organized 10,000 workers so far at Amazon. The settlement restores the illegally deducted time to all the strikers.
Key issues in the 2024 strike were pay, working conditions, decent scheduling and worker safety, according to Connor Spence, president of ALU-IBT Local 1. “Pay, benefits, working conditions—we can all achieve real positive change to these things at JFK8 but only if we stand together, build power in numbers, and take action,” Spence wrote then.
“When workers organize together as Teamsters, we have the power to go toe-to-toe with the biggest corporations in the world, and to win,” said Korgan. “Amazon Teamsters dragged the world’s largest retailer to the table kicking and screaming to try to fix the problems the company created for union members. The National Labor Relations Board now needs to stop dragging its feet and ratify this agreement immediately.”
Korgan also pledged the union will continue its intensive organizing at Amazon warehouses nationwide. When current Teamsters President Sean O’Brien ran for the union’s top job in a contested popular vote election in 2021, he called Amazon “an existential threat” to the Teamsters’ basic sectors of warehousing and trucking. And that was before the ramping up of artificial intelligence, the specter of robots in the warehouses, and the threat of driverless trucks on the nation’s roads.
But these wins don’t mean the war is over. The ALU convincingly won an NLRB-run election several years ago among workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, but the corporation is still foot-dragging on recognition and bargaining. And just since the November election, the ALU and California Teamsters locals have had to file Unfair Labor Practices—the formal name for labor law-breaking—charges against Amazon in the Los Angeles area.
History being made
For the thousands of workers who have been on the front lines of this organizing campaign for years, the recent victories are welcomed—but should not be seen as the “finish line.”
“We are making history at Amazon, and we are doing it through undiluted worker power,” said Spence. “This company has used every resource it has to try and break us over the past four years, and it continues to fail because vicious rapacity is no match for collective action.
“I’m so proud of my brothers and sisters who have fought this long and hard to get where we are. The fight is far from over, but we’ve built an incredible movement and unstoppable worker power across the country. We will keep fighting and we will win. Let’s keep making history!”
Kyle Middleton, a warehouse worker at JFK8 in New York, said that “every year, more Amazon workers join the Teamsters. Each organizing victory builds more power.
“To any of my co-workers who may have been on the fence, now is the time to join this movement. We are winning—and we will continue to force Amazon to respect its workforce in every possible way.”
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