Amazon employees are on vacation at seven properties during holiday shopping

Amazon Workers at seven facilities in New York, Georgia, California and Illinois went on strike Thursday to lobby for better benefits, higher wages and safer working conditions.

The strike, organized by members of the Teamsters union, is aimed at pressuring Amazon to come to the negotiating table and avoid disruptions during the peak holiday shopping season. The union previously gave to Amazon until sunday to agree the deal dates for the contract.

“If your closing is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do the right thing by our members. They ignored it.”

In a statement to CNBC, an Amazon spokesperson said the Teamsters have been engaged in a year-long campaign to “deliberately mislead the public.” Although the union says it represents thousands of workers and drivers, the protesters at the sites are “almost entirely outsiders,” Amazon said.

“The truth is that they didn’t get enough support from our employees and partners, and they brought in outsiders to harass and intimidate our team, which is inappropriate and dangerous,” he said, adding that “we continue to focus on getting customers” holiday orders. “

A representative for the Teamsters did not immediately respond to CNBC’s inquiry about whether outsiders were involved in the strike.

The Teamsters website says about 10,000 Amazon workers have joined the organization. That’s less than 1% of the company’s workforce of 1.53 million as of December 31, 2023. The union said Thursday’s campaign was the largest strike against Amazon in American history.

Amazon has long resisted unionization among its workforce, but organizing efforts began to materialize in 2022 with warehouse workers in Staten Island, New York. voted to join unity. Amazon has aggressively fought unionization efforts, so this was a major setback for the company.

Amazon Labor Union workers, who led the Staten Island strike in June, voted for membership with the Teamsters after fighting to secure a contract with Amazon.

— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

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