Dozens of Amazon workers staged a protest for better working conditions outside a sprawling distribution center in Garner early this morning, with delivery trucks braking at the picket line to delay Cyber Monday shipments in a show of solidarity.
The demonstration came at the onset of a hellish season for Amazon workers, who endure mandatory 60-hour work weeks between Black Friday and Christmas. Employees of warehouses like the one in Garner will make menial wages and receive no holiday bonuses as they box thousands of packages and trek upwards of ten miles each day while loading trucks.
In response to the INDY’s request for comment, Amazon spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis said that the Garner demonstration “had no impact on our operations or ability to deliver for our customers.”
“Amazon is estimated to be worth $1.4 trillion,” said Jessie Moreno, an Amazon delivery driver who helped organize the protest. “So they obviously have the money to take care of all of their employees. But they don’t want to. They don’t want to share the power.”
Moreno is a member of the Amazon Teamsters, a cohort based in Palmdale, California that in April formed the first union of Amazon delivery drivers in the country. Amazon has refused to bargain with the union or honor its contract, so the Teamsters have been on strike since June, picketing dozens of warehouses around the nation and globe. Europe saw waves of walkouts on Black Friday and in Spain, Amazon reached a deal with workers ahead of a planned one-hour Cyber Monday walkout.
“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union,” Paradis told the INDY in a statement. “They always have. We favor opportunities for each person to be respected and valued as an individual, and to have their unique voice heard by working directly with our team. The fact is, Amazon already offers what many unions are requesting: industry-leading pay, health benefits on day one, and opportunities for career growth.”
At the demonstration, the teamsters were joined by members of the Carolina Amazonians United For Solidarity & Empowerment, or C.A.U.S.E., a worker-led movement seeking to unionize Amazon workers in North Carolina.
Some protesters spread out along the sidewalk in front of the distribution center, handing flyers through the windows of cars stopped at red lights. Others gathered at the facility’s exit, chanting “get up, get down, Raleigh is a union town” and intercepting outgoing delivery drivers.
Most drivers greeted protesters with happy honks and stalled their engines until being told by Garner police officers to get going.
The demonstration started at 5:45 a.m. Protesters stayed put for more than three hours despite the frigid cold. As Moreno noted, Amazon workers are accustomed to operating in extreme climates.
“As a driver in the high desert,” said Moreno, “when we deliver these packages, it’s 110 degrees outside, and our vans don’t have air conditioning. Imagine you’re opening an oven to pull a pizza out and you get slapped with that heat. That’s what we face every time we go into the back of our vans to look for a package. We shouldn’t have to get heatstroke for a company that cares more about its profits than it does about the people making them the money.”
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