The national Teamsters Union has voted to make unionizing Amazon delivery drivers a national priority, which will ultimately include creating a special Teamsters division to aid Amazon worker union pushes.
The Teamsters will try to create Amazon unions where other pushes have failed; the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union's effort to organize warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama lost its union election by more than a 2:1 ratio earlier this year (though those election results are currently being challenged in front of the National Labor Relations Board). Though Amazon is the country's second-largest private employer (after Walmart), no NLRB-certified unions have successfully been created anywhere within the company.
The Teamsters Union voted at its national convention Thursday to approve a resolution that "recognizes the existential threat of Amazon to our workers" and to fully fund and provide all resources necessary to help Amazon drivers organize. Ninety-nine percent of those who voted on the resolution voted in favor.
"Amazon is changing the nature of our work in our country, and touches many core teamster industries and employers," Karla Schumann, the secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 104, said while reading the resolution aloud. The resolution also argued that Amazon poses an "existential" threat to national workplace standards created and maintained by Teamsters' union advocacy.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE