... Amazon workers picketed their employer over the weekend ... as part of an escalating series of strikes by a minority of workers across the logistics behemoth’s supply chain. These strikes, waged from coast to coast at nine warehouses, are part of a nationwide movement to consolidate organizing at the logistics giant in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT).

In 2022, the Teamsters launched a division to support organizing at Amazon. The union now represents 5,500 workers at the hulking JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island that formed the independent Amazon Labor Union (ALU) over two years ago. The ALU voted in June to affiliate with the Teamsters, creating ALU-IBT Local 1. Amazon has refused to recognize the union and bargain a contract.

... Amazon has claimed the strikes have had no effect. Several workers at different facilities, however, have said that the number of packages they moved per day dropped by a third or more.

But just as crucial is whether the strikes help build momentum for a national movement to organize Amazon. The Teamsters say the union represents ten thousand workers across ten facilities. Workers participated in strikes in nine cities. Teamsters also extended picket lines to dozens of Amazon fulfillment centers across the country, leafleting drivers and warehouse workers. In Monroe, Ohio, a group of Amazon workers who were already organizing with the Teamsters saw the picket lines and spontaneously joined the strike.

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The election filing is the result of nearly three years of organizing at the two-million-square-foot fulfillment center RDU1 in Garner, North Carolina. Those three years have seen multiple arrests and firings of key organizers, the union says.

... Daly wants longer and more frequent breaks to prevent injuries. The grueling twelve-hour shifts have taken a toll on her body, she says, and the ten-second breaks Amazon allots workers every half hour to do stretches is not enough when “physically carrying stuff up and down ladders.” She has sustained two injuries on her hands.

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Workers at Amazon’s San Bernardino air hub in Southern California, who demanded union recognition December 11, walked off the job at noon the same day....

Amazon did not respond by publication time to requests for comment on production impacts and other worker allegations in this story.

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