It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but instead of jingling bells, Amazon is hearing chants on picket lines. Workers at seven of the e-commerce giant’s delivery hubs walked out this week, striking for higher wages, better benefits, and safer working conditions. If Santa’s sleigh runs late, blame the Scrooge McDuck energy emanating from Amazon HQ.
The Teamsters union, representing a mix of warehouse workers and delivery drivers, has been trying to get Amazon to the negotiating table for over a year. Amazon, ever the pedantic stickler, insists these delivery drivers don’t technically work for them because they’re contractors. Classic “not-my-problem” vibes. The National Labor Relations Board, however, sided with the workers, classifying Amazon as a “joint employer” back in August. Amazon’s response? Toss the drivers a small pay bump and keep ghosting the Teamsters like a bad Tinder date.
The strikes are concentrated in Southern California, with cameos in Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, and Skokie, Illinois. If Amazon’s labor track record is any indicator, this could be a while.
And just to up the holiday chaos, Starbucks workers are also striking this week. It’s like a Hallmark movie, but instead of romance, we get corporate stonewalling and union-busting.
Amazon claims the strikes won’t mess up deliveries because of its “backup plans.” Apparently, those involve strategic warehouse locations and friends like UPS. But if your last-minute gift arrives late, feel free to gift Jeff Bezos an explanatory sticky note about labor rights.
For now, it’s unclear how long the strikes will last and that will keep American consumers hitting refresh on their tracking as they panic over holiday gift deliveries.