According to Zhitong Finance, earlier on Thursday, during the holiday shopping peak, employees at retail giant Amazon (AMZN.US) held a strike at seven warehouses in the USA, protesting the company's unfair treatment of employees. Warehouse workers in cities like New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco participated in what union officials described as the largest strike against Amazon in history, but this may not significantly impact the company's extensive shipping operations.

As the second-largest private employer globally after Walmart (WMT.US), Amazon has long been a target for unions, which state that the company's emphasis on speed and efficiency may lead to employee injuries. The company claims it pays industry-leading wages and utilizes automation designed to reduce repetitive strain.

Workers expressed their desire for Amazon to come to the negotiating table and recognize the pressure brought by meeting health-related demands. However, these strikers represent only a small fraction of the more than 800,000 employees Amazon employs at over 600 logistics centers, distribution stations, and same-day delivery facilities across the USA.

Jordan Soreff, a 63-year-old Amazon worker, stated: "(Amazon) pretends there are no quotas, but it has a strict quota system that unnaturally forces people to exceed their true physical limits. The more you do, the more others expect you to do." He delivers about 300 packages a day for Amazon in Queens and Brooklyn, New York City.

Soreff is one of about 100 people outside the Amazon factory in Queens, including many truck drivers who are not employed by Amazon. However, the factory continues to operate while other drivers report for work, and with police assistance, they leave with their trucks while the police prevent protesters from blocking the drivers. An Amazon spokesperson stated that truck drivers "deliberately mislead the public" and "threaten, intimidate, and attempt to coerce" employees and third-party drivers to join them.

Amazon has multiple office locations in many major metropolitan areas in the USA, shielding it from potential disruptions. The company stated that it expects operations to remain unaffected during one of the busiest times of the year. In 2023, the company sold over 0.5 billion items from independent sellers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Morningstar Analyst Dan Romanoff stated, "There may be some isolated delay events, but I think there will be no substantial impact."

Earlier this year, Amazon announced a $2.1 billion investment to raise the wages of Logistics and Transportation employees in the USA, increasing the base pay by at least $1.50 to about $22 per hour. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters gave Amazon a deadline of December 15 to start negotiations, but that day passed without talks. The truck driver union stated that they represent 10,000 workers from Amazon's factories, but this e-commerce giant denied it, claiming that these factories had not been through an election or bargaining requests.

Resist the union.

After workers in manufacturing industries such as Autos, Aerospace, and Railroads won significant concessions from employers, labor actions in the service sector have accelerated. If contract negotiations do not resolve, port workers in the USA may go on strike in mid-January. Earlier this week, a union representing over 1,000 Starbucks (SBUX.US) baristas was authorized to potentially strike. Earlier this year, several companies, including aircraft manufacturer Boeing (BA.US), were affected by strikes.

Amazon has still not recognized the factory on Staten Island as the first ever to vote to establish a union and has filed objections to the union vote with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 2022. In a federal lawsuit filed in September, Amazon questioned the constitutionality of the NLRB, which was established during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

In San Francisco, at least 30 protesters gathered at an Amazon factory, with an organizer from the truck driver union estimating that 15 to 20 of them were warehouse employees.

30-year-old San Francisco resident Janeé Roberts, who has worked at the factory for nearly two years, stated that the main reason for supporting the strike is safety conditions. Roberts held a sign outside the gate saying, "I not only watch my colleagues and see how exhausted their bodies are, but as part-timers, we don’t even get proper benefits."

Amazon's business includes Whole Foods Market, which will face other union actions in the coming months. Last November, workers at Philadelphia’s Whole Foods applied for a union election, marking the first union election since Amazon acquired the company in 2017. The United Services Union in Germany also announced that strikes would begin on Thursday at Amazon warehouses across the country in solidarity with truck drivers.