The strange saga of a group delivery drivers working for a contract delivery company for Amazon that claimed to have voted to join the Teamsters union in 2023 raised its head again this week in a demand by the Teamsters for Amazon to start negotiating a union contract.
“The Teamsters are done asking nicely for Amazon to stop breaking the law. Amazon must commit to come to the table and bargain a Teamsters contract with its workers — or face the consequences of its inaction,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien wrote in a statement on the social media platform X.
The Teamsters urged Amazon to agree to set bargaining dates for a union contract by Dec. 15.
The basis for the Teamsters demand? It appears to be the oddball, some might say dubious drivers union, and a single Amazon Fulfillment Center in Staten Island, New York, which did it appears vote to organize in 2021, but has been unable to take it further under questionable leadership. Workers there recently voted to switch unions and join the Teamsters
There were many news reports April 2023 that a relatively small group of 84 Amazon delivery drivers in Palmdale, California were joining the Teamsters union.
But it was hardly that simple. The drivers actually worked for a company called Battle-Tested Strategies. The company at one time was under contract to deliver packages as part of Amazon’s Delivery Service Partner program, which uses small contract firms that hire drivers to do the Amazon work, with Amazon defining pay, acceptable behaviors, and some other aspects of the job.
The 84 drivers agreed to be represented by the Teamsters union, and Battle-Tested Strategies agreed to a deal with the Teamsters, which supposedly included an immediate wage increase. The proposed contract also supposedly included provisions that addressed concerns around health and safety standards.
None this, however, made any sense.
First, why did Battle-Tested Strategies simply accept Teamsters representation of its workers, and immediately agree to a contract with generous improvements in pay and other areas? Normally, a business resists unionization and would not just offer a new and improved deal.
Second, the workers were said to receive this improved contact from Battle-tested Strategies, not Amazon itself. Amazon is under no obligation to make changes in compensation for services provided by its contractor, and most certainly did not.
Margins for DSP partners are reportedly very slim, so for Battle-Tested Strategies to unilaterally agree to hefty wages for its drivers with no corresponding compensation from Amazon would seem to have been financial suicide.
What was going on? It now seems likely the action was connected to this subject of this emailed statement from Amazon to web site Gizmado from company spokesperson Eileen Hards: “Whether the Teamsters are being intentionally misleading or they just don’t understand our business, the narrative they’re spreading is false,” Hards said at the time.
Hards later issued a statement claiming that “This particular third-party company had a track record of failing to perform,” and that it no longer did business with Amazon.
This pseudo union has made the news with some of announcement a couple of times since.
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So when the Teamsters state Amazon is required by law to negotiate with the union, it again seems to be referring to this group of drivers in Palmdale. That may be in part because in August, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in Los Angeles determined there was merit to accusations by the delivery workers that Amazon unlawfully refused to recognize their decision to unionize and failed to negotiate with the union over workplace issues.
That even though the drivers were no longer doing delivery work for Amazon through Battle-Tested Strategies.
One somewhat firmer ground, in 2022 one Amazon FC in New York did vote to organize but has never been able to get Amazon to the bargaining table, as Amazon has disputed certain aspects of the voting process.
With all that, the Teamster’s O’Brien also said that “Thousands of Amazon workers around the country have courageously united to take on one of the world’s most abusive employers. Amazon has a legal obligation to recognize the Teamsters and to start negotiating.”
“This is another attempt to push a false narrative about the independent small businesses who deliver on our behalf,” Amazon’s Hards said on the Teamster’s new demands.
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