Luis Feliz Leon

Wage Gains at UPS Have Amazon Workers Demanding More

Amazon warehouse worker Paul Blundell has spent the past year talking to his co-workers about how UPS Teamsters were getting organized to strike. So recently, he had big news to share: “A few days before the strike deadline, UPS caved.”

“Everybody’s jaw dropped” when they heard that night shift workers at the Philly UPS air hub will get an immediate raise to $24.75, Blundell said. “We top out around $20.90 after three years, so UPS is now starting well above that—with raises for the rest of the contract.”

UPS Teamsters ‘Just Practicing’

The clock is ticking on the August 1 strike deadline of 340,000 UPS Teamsters. It would be the largest strike at a private employer in decades.

“People are actually paying attention,” said delivery driver Kioma Forero, a Local 804 shop steward in New York City. Customers along her route stop her to say, “I hope your negotiations go well.” The hosts are talking about it on Hot 97, the city’s top hip-hop station.

Michigan Amazon Workers Stage Largest Delivery Station Strike Yet

In the middle of Amazon’s Prime Day promotional sales rush, 60 warehouse workers walked out for more than three hours at its delivery station in Pontiac, Michigan—bringing the facility to the brink of a total shutdown.

A delivery station is the last warehouse an Amazon package passes through before it is loaded into a truck or van en route to the customer.

Amazon Teamsters’ Rolling Pickets Hit Facilities Nationwide

Brandi Diaz was at a customer’s door in Palmdale, California, delivering stuff for Amazon, when the customer asked her, “What’s the difference between you and UPS drivers?”

“He said the difference is UPS is union, Amazon is not. He referred to us as ‘Jeff’s Bozos.’

“I am no longer Bezos’ Bozo!” Diaz said over honks and chants from 200 Teamsters from six different locals and some labor allies at a picket line outside an Amazon warehouse in northern New Jersey July 6.

Reform Caucus Rises, Sues for Elections in Amazon Labor Union

One year after the landmark union victory at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, New York, the brightly colored posters that once adorned the glass at the iconic bus stop in front of the plant are gone.

Machinists Ratify Contract at Airplane Parts Supplier, But Expose Rift with Union Leadership

Six thousand Machinists working for Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas, ratified a new four-year contract last week, returning to work today. The company had locked workers out on June 22, two days before their strike.

Machinists (IAM) Local Lodge 839 accepted the latest offer on June 28 by 63 percent, compared to 79 percent who rejected the first tentative agreement and 85 percent who voted to strike.

Six Thousand Machinists Strike Aircraft Parts Giant in Kansas—Threatening Boeing Production

Six thousand Machinists at a key Boeing supplier, Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas, went on strike June 24 after voting down the company’s “best and final offer.”

“We could all go somewhere else and make similar pay,” said one worker who has been at the company for 15 years and asked to be anonymous to speak freely. The average pay is around $20 hourly.

As New York Skies Darken, Delivery Workers Help Each Other

Wildfire smoke muddled the New York City skyline on Tuesday. Many people experienced the eerie threat mainly by scrolling through social media. But others experienced it in their bodies.

“My eyes were burning,” said UPS package driver Matt Leichenger, who was making deliveries in Brooklyn. “My throat was scratchy. By lunchtime, I was feeling dizzy and nauseous.”

Eventually, he got himself a surgical mask, he said, pausing momentarily to cough while we spoke on the phone. “It got a little bit better, but I was still blowing snot.”

Slingshot: Children on the Killing Floor

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Luis Feliz Leon

The first labor story I ever wrote was about the death of Juan Baten, a 22-year-old Guatemalan worker who was killed on the job at a food warehouse in Brooklyn in 2011. Baten got pulled into a mixing machine that lacked the required safety guard.

It hit me particularly hard, because I had been 12 years old when I became an apprentice baker, cooking bagels in an industrial oven. I’d recoil in a sort of dance to avoid burning myself after shoving the bagels into the furnace mouth on a wide wooden paddle and dislodging them with an upward jerking motion.

Union Win at Bus Factory Electrifies Georgia

After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697.

“It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW.

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