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January 26, 2024
by Tim Hall, Detroit Workers' Voice
There are widely different views in the capitalist mass media and among big capitalists like Amazon, among the labor bureaucrats and on the left about the recent Amazon strike. The analysis one gives about this strike or set of strikes tells a lot about the stance of people and groups towards the workers' movement, how its present condition is regarded and what role one sees for the labor bureaucracy.
To begin with, whether these were strikes at all is at issue. It would seem that this would not be in question, but it is.
Of course, Amazon itself claims there were no strikes over Christmas this year at all. In its view, nearly everybody involved in the protest actions at the nine Amazon facilities alleged to have been struck, as well as at the larger number of facilities where labor activists mounted support pickets but did not claim to strike – these were all, in Amazon's view, “outsiders,” people who do not work at Amazon. According to Amazon, there were simply no strikes. Why there was such a great commotion in the mass media and at the job sites over what was allegedly merely a set of protesters at the main locations, this was never explained by Amazon. Much ado about nothing, was their line.
The Teamsters Union itself, Democracy Now (the latter of the reformist left), other left groups and much of the capitalist mass media hailed a glorious strike of “thousands” of workers. In the view of all these, this was the greatest strike ever at Amazon, which is a low bar to exceed, since there had only been a few tiny attempts to strike before now in Amazon's short history. (1,2) A likely consequence of such a view of big success would, for strikers and their friends, be to simply do this over and over every year and surely it will expand until all or most of Amazon is shut down. But this view is based on a lie. The lie is that a significantly large number of Amazon workers went on strike this Christmas, enough to allow the workers to just rely on the same methods to solve everything. The fact is that at none of the nine strike targets was there a clear-cut, fairly large number of actual Amazon workers on strike.
No analyst has pointed to an Amazon facility which even came close to being closed by these efforts, or where even a majority of the package flow was definitely stopped for any significant length of time. In the narrow, traditional meaning of the word strike, these were only attempts to do it. Possibly hundreds of Amazon workers may have gone into motion during those days, but only a very small part of those were striking. Bringing these numbers of Amazon workers into protest motion, which seems to have happened, may by itself be an important step forward, but the problem of getting Amazon workers themselves to go out on actual strike in significant numbers has not been solved.
The Teamsters threw a pretty large number of members, retirees and low-level officials onto the picket lines at both striking and non-striking facilities. It was not easy to tell, among photos and videos of the gatherings, who were Teamster back-ups and who were actual Amazon workers, who was actually on strike and who was just there out of solidarity or to watch or ordered to be there by the Teamster officialdom. No evidence of multiples of “thousands” of striking Amazon workers was recorded photographically, even if one totals all nine Amazon worksites where strikes were actually called. This is not to denounce any Teamster workers who came out in support of Amazon workers who wanted to see a strike; those numbers actually helped the movement; but we are trying here to define the number of actual strikers. “Thousands” of strikers became the rhetoric of much of the left and the mass media, with negative consequences for future plans.
We have to look at some more serious observers from the left. One was Joe Allen, a longtime labor activist writing in Truthout, who put the term strike into quotation marks when writing about these events and stated that the number of workers from Amazon actually on strike was so small that the actions were “publicity strikes” (which some call “spectacle strikes”). Not strikes at all, as they shut down almost none of the over-all package-processing that Amazon was doing at the nine facilities. Allen recognized that the small number of strikers did do some damage to the package flow, but Allen saw it as so small and temporary as not to consider these even to be called strikes.(3)
Another left publication, In These Times, saw that the number of real strikers was indeed small, but said that the amount of package-flow that Amazon workers were able to cut off or disrupt in the processing of the strike-claimed plants was significant enough that these events should be called strikes.
For one thing, even though the processing of packages was only partially disrupted, it definitely happened. At the airhub at San Bernardino the striking Amazon workers were able to slow the outflow of packages down to 50-60% of the usual rate for an unknown (to the public) period of time. Other sites told In These Times a similar story. In Queens, Amazon workers reported similar impacts of striking. Both Joe Allen and In These Times state that Amazon is able to re-route package flow to avoid bottlenecks caused by striker.. But the striking workers themselves could see the actual cut in processing that they were causing; they knew it was real and word spread widely about it. Did this have any effect on Amazon's profits? It would not seem so, given Amazon's great size. But production and distribution in today's industry are watched at a micro-level, and small cuts are viewed as dangerous harbingers of a dreaded future in which worker masses will be able to carry out significant strikes and do significant damage to profit totals.
There is another factor. These strikes and the support protests (whose size was unprecedented at Amazon) have been reported by many to have given the workers a feeling of power, of strength as a workforce. If the strikes had been entirely ineffective, this sentiment would not have been very powerful or long-lasting, but workers report the opposite; they report an upsurge in interest and confidence in striking and organizing.(4)
In addition, there is the matter of growth. Some of the strikers and some of the non-strikers at the big workforces at the nine facilities had struck or seen protests and strike attempts last year. This year's campaign represented a big growth, a big expansion of struggle over last year, though still very small.. This, too, has given the workers a psychological and tactical boost.(3)
Tempest, another left journal, gives a brief but convincing picture of enough worker mobilization as to create a sort of an embryo of worker power. It shows actual striking workers vigorously endeavoring to get other Amazon workers, drivers, to slow down or to strike, with the help of some Teamsters who seem to be worker-fighters rather than tame bureaucrats. The Tempest article also raises an important point: it relates that there was great interest in the Amazon strike attempts by workers from other industries altogether. This is important, as the present generation of young workers have not been brought up with the poisonous doctrine enshrined in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, that one must never spread a strike from one employer to another.(5)
So where does this lead? Should the Amazon workers' leaderships just keep calling these small strikes, hoping they grow? It does seem to have become an annual ritual. And it should be repeated, because ceasing may seem like surrender, but in order for the campaign not to get stale there should be other tactics to use year-round.
The local president of the Amazon Labor Union at Staten Island, Conor Spence, says (Democracy Now) that the Amazon unionization movement now has more than 20 other worksites where over 30% (he says more than 50%) of each workforce has submitted union cards, and these workforces are now ready to hold elections to decide for or against unionization. With this amount of card signatures labor law requires unionization elections. Amazon is illegally refusing to call such elections. This means that, while the movement cannot truly boast of “thousands” of strikers, it does have thousands of submitted union cards and thus thousands of supporters in that sense of the word. This is real support, to a certain level. It will not guarantee that the union will be voted in, if and when such elections happen, but it indicates a measure of real support.
What to do next? Some might say, just push for the elections. That is certainly necessary and it is a weak point for Amazon, but one that may soon be eliminated when Trump (as he plans to do) re-organizes the NLRB to block the limited support it has given to unionization in the last few years. Public campaigns demanding elections at these facilities might have some success. This is something that Amazon workers and Teamsters members could do together, if the Teamster officialdom deigns to call for it.
But this workforce has many young people who are responsive to the left and who think of their movement as essentially a strike movement. They get excited about actual struggle on the shop floor. Tactics must be found for these activists to use, to actively attack management while supporting and spreading the demand for elections. The workforces can get creative with on-the-job actions; such things as mass work-to-rule and even small agit-prop theater techniques can raise spirits and expose and hinder management, while avoiding getting fired.
So it seems that, despite the small number of strikers, this Christmas campaign has advanced the cause of Amazon workers and raises some possible directions to take in the future.
One is, who decides and plans further actions? The Teamsters have created an organizational division within the union for Amazon workers. The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) at Staten Island is apparently the only union member of it. Up until the ALU joined the Teamsters, it alone made all the decisions about strategy and tactics at Amazon. Now this is different. It is unclear how the structure works and how decisions get made about how, for example, to press for elections required under labor law. It is also likely that the Teamster apparatus will oppose most job actions. And when the Amazon workers build the strength to wage effective strikes, how will such decisions be made? It is inevitable that the younger Amazon workers will want to go beyond, or around, what the Teamsters bureaucracy will allow. The bureaucracy presently is served by promoting the lie that thousands of Amazon workers went on strike. That is easy to say when very few actually did so. But in the hoped-for future, when actual thousands are ready and willing to strike, who will make the decisions then? The Teamster bureaucrats will not be enthusiastic for strikes. Or if locals make such plans, who will communicate those plans to other local areas of Amazon workers? When struggle reaches any kind of higher level, such problems will become very serious. Liaison will be needed. Organization independent of the Teamster bureaucracy will be needed.
This raises the question of organizational form. The Teamsters will enforce top-down control by their bureaucracy. The Amazon workers will need some form of freedom from such control, as that control will inevitably go against their desires. Amazon worker activists should consider forms of communication and organization horizontally among their various worksites, some of which are not under the control of the Teamster bureaucrats, just as a start to self-organization. At one such site, in Garner, North Carolina, where the CAUSE organization (Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment) has submitted sufficient union cards to require an election, CAUSE has said it wants to remain independent of major unions.
It may seem to some that the Teamsters themselves will provide responsive leadership, but the past history of labor bureaucracy suggests the contrary.
1) Teamster Press Release, “Amazon Teamsters at JFK8 Join Historic
Strike”.
2) Democracy Now, “Thousands of Amazon workers strike!". Also: "Amazon Workers Launch Historic Strike to Demand New Contracts & End Unsafe Labor Practices”, Dec. 20, 2024.
3) Truthout, “The Teamsters’ ‘strikes’ at Amazon: A critical assessment” by Joe Allen.
4) In these times, “Amazon Strike Takeaways: Walk-Outs Slowed
Packages, Boosted Union Powe”.
5) Tempest, “Report on the Amazon Teamsters’ strike in Southern California”.
Picture: Democracy Now on the Amazon strike,
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