(Source: Column by Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa published in the Detroit News, July 7, 2021)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Teamsters Union at its 30th International Convention late last month made a historic decision to commit and unite the union to protecting and improving the wages and workings standards in the goods movement industry under threat from Amazon’s exploitative employment model.
Amazon’s reprehensible labor practices are well documented and recent groundbreaking reporting confirms there are continuing abusive practices. A recent analysis by Jeff Bezos’ own Washington Post and a report by the Strategic Organizing Center shined a light on Amazon’s atrocious health and safety record that found, among other things, Amazon workers are injured at rates twice the industry average. The New York Times documented the Amazon culture of treating workers like disposable cogs through a business model designed on high worker turnover.
For the past five years we’ve been tracking Amazon’s growth, presence and impact on Teamster-represented industries and speaking with thousands of Amazon workers about the conditions they face in their workplaces. To further our work and those efforts, last year I appointed Randy Korgan, a local union leader in Southern California, as the National Director for Amazon.
Full story: www.teamster.org