Accusations fly this holiday season as the Teamsters, a national labor union, goes on strike against Amazon. While the timing is meant to maximize pressure on the retail giant, the strategy is to delay packages from making it to consumers before Christmas.
The Teamsters are taking to the streets, touting a “new” National Labor Relations Board rule that could make Amazon a joint-employer with their third-party delivery services, making them equally responsible for the third-party employer’s drivers and forcing them to bargain with the Teamsters. But upon closer inspection, the rule was actually passed in October of 2023. Why were the strikes delayed until now?
Because, as Charles Dickens proved in A Christmas Carol, spinning a narrative of greed so close to Christmas catches peoples’ attention.
By biding their time until Christmas 2024, the Teamsters were able to organize the biggest strike against Amazon in U.S. history and blame package delays on corporate greed. They could have taken the rule when it was fresh off the press back in October 2023 to push for action, but they instead waited until now specifically because it hurts consumers.
According to Javier Palomarez, President of the United States Hispanic Business Council, the strikes are a disheartening PR stunt. “Because Teamsters failed to garner enough support to hold an official election and form a union among Amazon employees, they are instead encouraging DSP employees to leave work without any legal protections or bargaining power, “ he explained. “Given their close relationship with Senator Bernie Sanders, I am concerned that these protests are the next phase of the Senator’s Amazon Workplace report that ultimately fell on deaf ears.”
Sure enough, the timing of the strike coincides with a last, end-of-year report issued by Sanders leveled against the retail giant as the retailer prepares to meet consumer needs during the holidays. In it, Sanders paints a similar narrative to the Teamsters’, that Amazon is deliberately turning a blind eye to endangering its employees and third-party staff.
In his report, Sanders cherry-picks data and amplifies stories from 500 workers (compared to Amazon’s total 1.5 million employees) as evidence of foul play. For example, when looking at Amazon’s reported reduction in injuries by 30 percent, Sanders attempts to wave this away, claiming that “Amazon has chosen to boast, repeatedly, about its recordable injury rate falling as compared to an outlier year.”
Well, that is one way to read it, but as Glenn Spencer of the Chamber of Commerce rebuts, a much more accurate reading is simply explained by Amazon catching and correcting a rise in injuries—which is cause for celebration. Instead of calling for peace on Earth this holiday season, Sanders seems more interested in pursuing a vendetta, with the Teamsters all too happy to join in harmony.
While politicians and unions collude, consumers watch, hoping for their packages to arrive – and not just a ghost of their Christmas presents.
Nate Karren is a policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit us at www.TheAmericanConsumer.Org or follow us on X @ConsumerPal