The Amazon workers union will be affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, giving the fledgling union the backing of the Teamsters, one of the most powerful forces in labor. It was announced on Tuesday.
Details of the merger were not immediately released, but the Teamsters said the union’s board of directors unanimously approved the decision to merge on Tuesday. The union represents about 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada.
“This is a historic day for American workers. We now join forces with one of the most powerful unions to take on Amazon,” said ALU President Christian Smalls. stated on social media platform X“Our message is clear: we want a deal, and we want it now. We’re letting Amazon know we’re coming!”
The ALU was formed in 2022 as a grassroots organization representing workers at Amazon’s JFK8 warehouse facility in New York City, making them the first Amazon warehouse employees in the nation to be represented by a union.
The union has faced difficulties in recent years, including a failed organizing drive at Amazon’s second plant in New York City and a lawsuit from former leaders over the leadership selection process.
The JFK8 facility is the only unionized Amazon warehouse in the country, and the union is currently negotiating its first labor contract. An effort to unionize the warehouse in Alabama, affiliated with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, also failed in 2021.
Meanwhile, the Teamsters won their biggest union victory yet, negotiating a new contract with UPS in July that significantly increased wages and benefits.
The Teamsters pledged last year to launch their own Amazon division and consolidate Amazon’s various unionization efforts under that banner, and in the midst of negotiations with UPS last summer, labor experts told The Hill that Amazon was a logical next step for the Teamsters’ expansion.
“Obviously, this union has deep roots in warehouse, logistics, delivery, Amazon-type jobs, and I think it has ambitions to organize workers in this industry, including Amazon,” Bob Bussell, director of the University of Oregon’s Center for Labor Education and Research, told The Hill.
“As a result, if workers can see tangible gains as a result of collective action that a union can actually deliver, it will send a very strong signal to workers at Amazon and other workplaces that there is a strong union ready to take collective action and effective action on their behalf,” he added.
Amazon has long resisted unionization efforts: In 2022 alone, the company spent $14 million on anti-labor consulting, more than three times more than Starbucks, which spent the most on anti-labor consulting in 2021.
The Hill has reached out to the Teamsters and Smalls for comment.
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