Posts tagged Amazon drivers
Opinion: Democrats Attack Gig-Worker Benefits
July 23, 2025 // In a committee hearing on the bill last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders sidestepped the issue of worker benefits to address his party’s real concern—giving unions more power over individual workers. “These bills are about giving corporations the freedom to deny workers the right to form a union,” he said. Independent contractors can’t unionize under the National Labor Relations Act, so unions and the Democrats they support want to outlaw contract work, or at least deprive it of benefits that could attract workers. Democrats on the committee were united in opposition. This political opposition has deterred several gig companies from offering benefits. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has pledged more than $650 million a year to fund health insurance and paid time off if lawmakers would withdraw the threat of reclassifying the company’s drivers.
VIDEO: Thousands of Amazon workers strike during the holiday shopping rush, Teamsters Union says
December 19, 2024 // The Teamsters union launched a strike against Amazon that began Thursday morning, and it includes multiple facilities in California, in addition to facilities in New York, Illinois and Georgia. The union says thousands of Amazon workers walked off the job at 6 a.m., right in the middle of the busy holiday shipping season.
LA Strikes Embody Widespread Anxiety Over Worker Pay, Rise of AI
July 31, 2023 // The city has almost accidentally become a microcosm for worker unrest. Actors and writers—on strike simultaneously for the first time since 1960—have paralyzed Hollywood. Cleaners and cooks are sporadically picketing outside hotels, including the Beverly Hilton, the longtime venue of the Golden Globe Awards. Thousands of UPS drivers could strike next week if the Teamsters rank and file don’t quickly approve a tentative agreement announced Tuesday, following in the footsteps of port workers who walked off the job last month. Los Angeles Unified School District teachers also went on strike this year, winning a 30% pay increase after more than 400,000 students were out of class for three days. And in May, performers at a North Hollywood bar formed the first strippers’ union in the US in nearly three decades. Companies say they’re being unfairly blamed for the rising cost of living while they try to find common ground with unions—a dominant source of worker angst that has also resulted in California having the highest rate of homelessness in the nation.
How Amazon’s unlikely union reflects the changing face of US labour movement
April 26, 2022 // Professional labour activists will be watching closely as the Amazon Labour Union faces its second test on Monday, as workers at a smaller facility across the street begin casting ballots in their own union election. It is unclear if the grassroots strategies that succeeded the first time — such as connecting over home-cooked meals and bus stop bonfires — will produce the same results at other facilities.