Senior Vice President, Employment Policy Division, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
On April 25, newspapers reported that the Teamsters union had successfully organized workers at Amazon. There’s just one problem: they didn’t. Reading the fine print, it turns out that the Teamsters organized 84 drivers and dispatchers at a company called Battle Tested Strategies. Not only are those workers not employees of Amazon, but the company no longer provides any services to Amazon. According to a spokesperson for Amazon: “This particular third-party company had a track record of failing to perform and had been notified of its termination for poor performance well before today’s announcement.”
So, while the Teamsters may be happy to have recruited a handful of new members, that success bears no resemblance to the thunderous headlines. And therein lies a problem for organized labor.
Congress Introduces Much-Needed Employee Rights Act
Over the past year, there have been countless news articles about a resurgence in organizing, and campaigns against a few major businesses have gathered outsized media attention. But behind the hype, there’s not much “there” there. The campaign against Starbucks seems to be running out of steam, there have been several losses at facilities that do have Amazon employees, including a re-run campaign in Alabama, and union density fell in 2022 to a new low of just 10.1 percent of the workforce. Organizing 84 drivers and dispatchers at a small contractor...
Washington, April 27 Prominent television hosts and journalists have pushed back against online claims that the White House ... Washington, April 27 Prominent television hosts and journalists have ...