Amazon supply drivers unionized and negotiated their first contract with the Teamsters union final week — an enormous feat for staff at an organization that has used its monumental dimension and power to battle off employee organizing.
But that victory is a bit sophisticated.
The 84 California supply drivers and dispatchers who unionized seem at first look to be Amazon workers. They put on Amazon vests and drive Amazon-branded autos, have schedules dictated by Amazon, and might even be fired by Amazon. But they’re technically employed by Battle Tested Strategies (BTS), considered one of roughly 3,000 supply contract firms that make up Amazon’s intensive supply community. BTS voluntarily acknowledged the union after a majority of staff signed union authorization playing cards and negotiated the union contract.
Amazon has informed Vox that its contract with BTS, which solely delivers for Amazon, was terminated “well before” staff notified the tech big Monday, however that the contract hasn’t expired but. The union stated that the supply persons are nonetheless working for Amazon and that the contract goes by way of October, when it sometimes would auto-renew.
What occurs subsequent depends upon Amazon, the employees, and the interpretation of outdated US labor regulation.
As American companies more and more depend on contract staff, present laws, written for extra simple employee-employer relationships, places these staff in a grey space the place their rights might be unclear. Even for conventional workers, like these at Starbucks, corporate pushback in opposition to unions has made organizing a Herculean process. That means even small wins, like that of the supply contractor in opposition to a large tech behemoth, are spectacular and might present a pathway ahead for the way others would possibly unionize at the moment.
Unionizing on a small scale seems to be to be one of many many methods unions just like the Teamsters are utilizing to attempt to achieve footing of their uphill battles with big companies. It might be simpler for unions to arrange with particular person contract firms, which could not have the specific anti-union stance and ways of Amazon. Contractors at different tech firms — like at Google, the place a bunch of fifty YouTube contractors voted to unionize this week — will probably be paying particular consideration to what occurs with this Amazon supply union.
At the crux of the supply driver concern is whether or not Amazon controls sufficient of what the employees do to be thought-about a joint employer.
“If Amazon is able to get away with ignoring the workers’ decision and hiding behind the subcontractor relationships, then I’m afraid we’ll have yet another story of the failure of American labor law,” stated Benjamin Sachs, a labor professor at Harvard Law School. “If this leads to a recognition that these drivers are Amazon employees, joint employees, then this could be massively important.”
One factor of word: These staff organized in California, which has a decrease bar for who is taken into account an worker, and by extension, who enjoys union protections. For staff there to be thought-about impartial contractors, they have to fulfill three situations: The employee should be free from the corporate’s “control and direction,” carry out work that’s outdoors the corporate’s common enterprise, and be engaged in an “independently established trade.”
Another factor that the National Labor Relations Board will doubtless need to resolve is whether or not Amazon terminated the contract with BTS in an effort to keep away from working with a union, one thing that will be unlawful in the event that they had been thought-about workers. Amazon talked about that the corporate had a “track record of failing to perform” however didn’t reply to questions on when precisely it informed BTS it was terminating the contract and whether or not the e-commerce firm had been conscious of union organizing earlier than then. BTS didn’t reply to an interview request.
Randy Korgan, the Amazon division director for the Teamsters, stated the supply drivers had been concerned in “concerted activity” for the final 12 months and a half, through which they communicated with their contractor and Amazon concerning their points about warmth — they steadily ship packages in close to 100-degree climate — and car security.
The newest Teamsters unionizing efforts seem like a wise tactic: Rather than going through Amazon and its anti-union sources head-on, organizing smaller subcontracting companies is likely to be a much less onerous technique, in keeping with Robert Bruno, a labor professor and director of the labor research program on the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
“It’s an easier way to get in the door, an easier way to start to represent some folks,” Bruno stated.
Amazon has directed a lot of its anti-union efforts — together with establishing relationships with policymakers and burnishing its picture with union allies by way of efforts like using previously incarcerated folks — in opposition to the Teamsters and notably in Southern California, which is a key logistics hub for the corporate. The Teamsters may leverage its union win and contract there, which incorporates issues like higher wages and addressing security considerations, to persuade different contractors and workers to unionize.
This is just not the primary union victory at Amazon, nevertheless it’s the furthest alongside. Amazon staff at a Staten Island warehouse voted to type an impartial union final 12 months however are nonetheless preventing to barter a contract. Another union vote at a warehouse in Alabama failed.
Teamsters beforehand unionized Amazon supply drivers in Michigan in 2017, however they by no means achieved a union contract. The union alleged that their subcontracting firm and Amazon illegally fired staff in retaliation for unionizing, however Amazon was in a position to escape blame by saying it wasn’t their employer, and the subcontracting firm closed up store within the state shortly after.
“Workers are much more active today in their pursuit to exercise their rights,” Korgan stated.
The union can also be extra ready, he stated, having handed a decision in 2021 through which it created a division aimed particularly at constructing employee energy at Amazon. Teamsters already characterize UPS drivers, who ship many of the different packages not delivered by Amazon’s community, so that they see organizing the remainder of its drivers as squarely of their wheelhouse. Korgan says there are different contracting companies like BTS which are “sympathetic” to their staff’ union efforts however many concern retaliation from Amazon.
While the BTS union and contract are actually vital, particularly to the lives and livelihoods of those that work there, their higher significance would possibly lie in symbolism.
“People were saying, ‘You can’t organize Amazon, nobody else has been able to organize it,’” Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor schooling analysis at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, informed Vox. “Now the Teamsters could say, ‘Well, we’re doing it.’ I think that will help give momentum to the movement to organize in the logistics industry.”
