Amazon has fired more than 150 unionized drivers working for a third-party contractor in Queens, New York, according to the Teamsters union.
Workers rallied at the company’s DBK4 facility in Queens on Monday after the company fired the drivers, who worked for Cornucopia, a delivery service provider (DSP) that Amazon contracted with to make deliveries. Amazon works with more than 3,000 DSPs around the world who deliver the company’s packages.
The Teamsters said the firings were in retaliation for unionizing.
“Amazon is breaking the law and we let the public know it,” said Antonio Rosario, a member of local 804 and a Teamster organizer, in a statement. “Amazon workers will continue to organize and fight for what they deserve.”
Amazon has long claimed that drivers who are employed by third-party contractors are not employees of the company, and that firing a contractor does not amount to retaliation for unionizing.
In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson, Eileen Hards, called the move “a recent change we made that’s designed to allow DSPs to be more hands-on with their teams and support their operations at one delivery station”.
“Our goal is to provide customers with fast delivery and great service – and we regularly review and make changes to the DSP program in support of this,” Hards said.
Last August, a National Labor Relations Board official in Los Angeles ruled that Amazon had engaged in unfair labor practices after it terminated its contract with Battle-Tested Strategies (BTS), another DSP based in Palmdale, California, whose drivers had unionized with the Teamsters.
Although the NLRB said that Amazon’s action did not amount to retaliation, the official said Amazon and BTS “unlawfully failed and refused to bargain with the union over effects of the decision to terminate the BTS contract”.
In its ruling, the NLRB deemed Amazon a joint employer of the drivers. Amazon has appealed against the ruling.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the Teamsters organized a strike among Amazon warehouse workers across eight facilities over what the company says were stalled contract negotiations for better pay and working conditions.
Last September, Amazon joined companies including SpaceX that argued the structure of the NLRB is unconstitutional because its board members cannot be removed by the president. Though a ruling on the case has not been issued, the supreme court stayed Donald Trump’s firing of Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the NLRB, despite being blocked by a lower court.
Since Wilcox’s position remains unfilled, the labor board does not have a quorum to rule on labor disputes, meaning it’s unable to rule on major labor disputes.
