While you were sleeping, more than 50 Amazon employees who want to unionize walked off the job at a Riverside facility Tuesday, Dec. 16, according to the Teamsters.
The 1:55 a.m. night shift walkout at the Krameria Avenue facility — known in Amazon circles as DJT6 — is the latest public display of what union leaders say is a growing push to improve pay and working conditions at one of the Inland Empire’s largest employers.
“We do the work that keeps Amazon running every single day,” Samuel Padilla, an Amazon warehouse worker at the facility, said in a Teamsters news release.
“In return, we want a say in our working conditions and stable means to provide for ourselves and our families. Amazon keeps pushing us to our limits, and we’re done being ignored.”
Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said via email that the walkout “by the Teamsters is another example of their continuing illegal efforts to intimidate workers, block entry and exit to our facilities and interfere with our operations.”
“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union,” Hards said. “They always have.”
“The fact is we already provide much of what the Teamsters are requesting, including safe and inclusive workplaces, competitive pay, health benefits on day one and opportunities for career growth. While the Teamsters continue to violate the law and mislead the public, our teams remain focused on doing what they do best: delivering for customers.”
The Teamsters said the walkout marked the start of a union drive at the Riverside facility, which the union described as one of the largest Amazon delivery stations in the U.S. It is south of Van Buren Boulevard and west of Riverside National Cemetery.
Most of the night shift walked off the job, said Robert Gonzalez, communications coordinator for Teamsters Local 1932.
Workers at the Riverside facility want to unionize with the Teamsters for better pay, working conditions “and recognition and respect for the value they bring to Amazon,” the Teamsters’ release states.
The facility is on track to be the fourth Southern California location “where Amazon workers have reached a majority in union support,” the release added.
Amazon is the second-largest employer in Riverside County and employs thousands more in San Bernardino County. Its smiling arrow logo, emblazoned on the sides of warehouses, delivery trucks and big rigs, is seemingly everywhere in the Inland Empire.
For years, the Teamsters have been working with at least some employees at Amazon’s San Bernardino air hub. Last December, the Teamsters announced air hub workers had unionized, an assertion that Amazon disputes.