Amazon workers organizing with the Teamsters at KCVG, the company’s largest air hub in the world, rallied this week to demand Amazon increase their wages by $3 per hour as part of the company’s wage review. At the rally, workers held signs that read “We are the Teamsters.”
The rally comes as growing pressure by organizing Amazon workers continues to push the company to raise wages for warehouse workers and drivers nationwide. Amazon announced raises of $1.50 per hour for frontline workers, which includes air hub workers at KCVG.
“KCVG is Amazon’s largest air hub, yet despite the essential work of Amazon workers like me keeping this hub up and running, the company treats us as disposable. We’re fighting for a pay increase that aligns with the work we do for Amazon, and that’s $3 per hour and nothing less,” said Zach Neely, a process assistant at KCVG. “So many of us are living paycheck to paycheck while working for a company that profits hundreds of billions of dollars each year.”
The rally comes as Amazon workers across the country continue to drive historic union organizing with the Teamsters. Just this week, a majority of Amazon delivery drivers in New York City signed authorization cards to organize with the Teamsters Union, building onto the union momentum for Amazon drivers in Skokie, IL and Palmdale, CA. Last month, Palmdale drivers secured a monumental victory when National Labor Relations Board Region 31 made a determination that Amazon is a joint employer of its Delivery Service Partner drivers, and therefore has a legal duty to recognize and bargain with the Teamsters.
“Amazon workers across divisions and geographies have had enough of the company’s disrespect, low pay, and poor working conditions. We work for one of the most profitable companies in the world, and we deserve better. That’s why we’re organizing with the Teamsters,” said Jason Gay, an Amazon associate at KCVG.
Wednesday’s rally is the first action outside KCVG since the Teamsters’ federal injunction win last month affirming the union’s right to picket and rally at the air hub facility. The injunction marked a key victory in the Teamsters’ national fight to organize workers at Amazon.
Brotherhood of Teamsters