\n<\/p>\n
Amazon has fired more than 150 unionized drivers working for a third-party contractor in Queens, New York, according to the Teamsters union.<\/p>\n
Workers rallied at the company\u2019s 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\u2019s packages.<\/p>\n
The Teamsters said the firings were in retaliation for unionizing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazon is breaking the law and we let the public know it,\u201d said Antonio Rosario, a member of local 804 and a Teamster organizer, in a statement. \u201cAmazon workers will continue to organize and fight for what they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, Amazon said the union was \u201cdeliberately spreading misinformation\u201d.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson, Eileen Hards, called the move \u201ca recent change we made that\u2019s designed to allow DSPs to be more hands-on with their teams and support their operations at one delivery station\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to provide customers with fast delivery and great service \u2013 and we regularly review and make changes to the DSP program in support of this,\u201d Hards said. \u201cChanges like this not only benefit their employees, but also our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Although the NLRB said that Amazon\u2019s action did not amount to retaliation, the official said Amazon and BTS \u201cunlawfully failed and refused to bargain with the union over effects of the decision to terminate the BTS contract\u201d.<\/p>\n
In its ruling, the NLRB deemed Amazon a joint employer of the drivers. Amazon has appealed against the ruling.<\/p>\n
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the Teamsters organized a strike among Amazon warehouse workers across eight facilities over what the union says were stalled contract negotiations for better pay and working conditions.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s firing of Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the NLRB, despite being blocked by a lower court.<\/p>\n
Since Wilcox\u2019s position remains unfilled, the labor board does not have a quorum to rule on labor disputes, meaning it\u2019s unable to rule on major labor disputes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[422,8758,5412,12292,12291,12290],"class_list":{"0":"post-20004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-amazon","9":"tag-drivers","10":"tag-fires","11":"tag-teamsters","12":"tag-thirdparty","13":"tag-unionized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}