An Amazon delivery truck passes people holding signs and marching during a strike by Teamsters union members at an Amazon facility in Alpharetta, Georgia, December 19, 2024.
Elijah Nouvelage | Reuters
Amazon workers at seven plants in New York, Georgia, California and Illinois went on strike Thursday, lobbying for better benefits, higher wages and safer working conditions.
The strike, organized by Teamsters union members, aims to pressure Amazon to come to the bargaining table and avoid disruptions to the peak holiday shopping season. The union previously gave to Amazon until Sunday to agree on contract negotiation dates.
“If your shipment is delayed during the holidays, you can blame it on Amazon's insatiable greed,” Teamsters president Sean O'Brien said in a statement. “We have given Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do the right thing for our members. They ignored him.”
In a statement to CNBC, an Amazon spokesperson said the Teamsters have been waging a year-long campaign to “intentionally mislead the public.” Although the union claims to represent thousands of workers and drivers, protesters at these plants are “almost entirely foreign,” Amazon said.
“The truth is that they have been unable to obtain sufficient support from our employees and partners and have brought in outsiders to harass and intimidate our team, which is inappropriate and dangerous,” the company said, adding that it “continues to focus focusing on attracting customers for their Christmas orders.”
A Teamsters representative did not immediately respond to a CNBC inquiry about whether outsiders were involved in the strike.
The Teamsters website says nearly 10,000 Amazon employees have joined the organization. This represents less than 1% of the company's workforce of 1.53 million as of December 31, 2023. The union said Thursday's campaign is the largest strike against Amazon in American history.
Amazon has long opposed unions among its workers, but organizing efforts began to bear fruit in 2022 when warehouse workers on New York's Staten Island I voted to join relationship. Amazon has aggressively fought unionization efforts, so this was a devastating defeat for the company.
In June, workers of the Amazon Labor Union, which led the movement on Staten Island, voted for an affiliate with the Teamsters after difficulties in negotiating a contract with Amazon.
— CNBC's Annie Palmer contributed to this report.
TO WATCH: How Two Friends Created America's First Amazon Union and What's Next
