On the Picket Line

Amazon drivers organize strike action in four states

By Susan Lamont
and Marklyn Wilson
January 13, 2025

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — “Working here made me want to get involved in fighting for a union,” Aaron Nipper, an Amazon delivery driver, told the Militant here Dec. 19, as some 20 drivers and supporters from the Teamsters union picketed outside the huge Amazon distribution center in this north Atlanta suburb. They were part of a five-day protest by drivers at eight Amazon locations in California, Illinois, New York and Georgia.

“We’re fighting for union recognition and better pay and working conditions,” Nipper said. He said he worked at Amazon for two years before being illegally fired for union activity in November.

Like many other companies, Amazon uses a subcontracting scam, aiming to keep its workforce divided, to fight against union-organizing efforts and keep wages and benefits low. Amazon claims the drivers aren’t Amazon employees, even though they drive Amazon trucks, wear Amazon uniforms and have to follow Amazon procedures and work rules.

“You clock in to work, pick up your van and get your route, load the van up yourself, then head out to make your deliveries,” Nipper said. “Our shift is supposed to be 10 hours, four days a week. But you have to keep going until all the packages are delivered, so we often have to work 12-hour days.” Drivers are only paid overtime after 40 hours a week, he said, and company-provided health insurance is so costly many drivers can’t afford to sign up.

Two dozen members of Teamsters Local 705 picketed at the Amazon warehouse in Skokie, Illinois, just north of Chicago, reported Dean Hazlewood. As the delivery trucks crept up to the gates to go out on their delivery rounds, pickets would delay them just long enough for one picket to hand the driver a flier about the organizing drive and urge them to join in.

Carla Latuff said she had been a driver for Amazon there for six months. Arriving from Venezuela two years ago, she said she “never imagined I would be on a picket line. But this is a fight for all workers at Amazon. The unity of all workers is the way we are going to win.”

The Teamsters filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board over the company’s refusal to negotiate. Amazon claims the complaint is invalid because the drivers are contract workers.