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Amazon Union Push Falls Short at North Carolina Warehouse

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The outcome was a setback for workers trying to score a second election success at an Amazon facility. The union vowed to keep trying to organize.Amazon workers voted overwhelmingly against a bid to unionize their North Carolina warehouse, the National Labor Relations Board said on Saturday, the latest setback in labor organizing efforts at the e-commerce giant.Workers at the RDU1 fulfillment center in Garner, outside of Raleigh, voted 2,447 to 829 against unionizing with Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment, or CAUSE, an upstart union founded by warehouse workers in 2022.Organizers at the warehouse, which employs more than 4,000 people, sought starting wages of $30 an hour. The current pay range is about $18 to $24, Amazon said. The union also demanded longer lunch breaks and increased vacation time. In a statement, leaders of CAUSE said the election outcome was the result of Amazon’s “relentless and illegal efforts to intimidate us.” They did not say whether they would challenge the outcome, but vowed to keep trying to organize. Eileen Hards, a spokeswoman for Amazon, wrote: “We’re glad that our team in Garner was able to have their voices heard, and that they chose to keep a direct relationship with Amazon.” Leading up to the election, the worker-led union filed charges with the labor relations board accusing Amazon of interfering with employees’ protected union activity. The company gave preferential treatment to workers who did not support the union, according to the charges filed by CAUSE. Amazon also unfairly fired the co-founder of the union one week before workers filed for a union election in December, CAUSE said in a filing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Where China’s Exports Begin: Inside the Vast Markets of Guangzhou

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    Rows of white concrete buildings near the Pearl River in southern China house one of the world’s fastest-growing industries: Gritty workshops are churning out inexpensive clothing that is exported straight to homes and small businesses around the world. No tariffs are paid, and no customs inspections are conducted.The laborers who make these goods earn as little as $5 an hour, including overtime, for workdays that can last 10 hours or more. They pay $130 a month to sleep on bunk beds in tiny rooms above factories packed with sewing machines and mounds of cloth.“It’s hard work,” said Wu Hua, who sews pants, seven days a week, at a factory in Guangzhou, a vast metropolis that straddles the Pearl River.E-commerce giants have forged close links from international markets to workers like Mr. Wu, shaking retailing and economies around the globe.The number of duty-free shipments to the United States has risen more than tenfold since 2016, to four million parcels per day last year. Similar shipments to the European Union have climbed even faster, reaching 12 million parcels a day last year. Duty-free shipments to developing countries like Thailand and South Africa have also surged.Now a global backlash is underway. President Trump ordered a halt on Feb. 4 to the duty-free entry, without inspection, of parcels with goods worth up to $800. Mr. Trump temporarily suspended his order to give officials time to devise a plan for dealing with the mounds of parcels that immediately started piling up at airports for inspection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Trade Move Could Increase Costs for Many Online Goods

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    President Trump’s decision to impose hefty tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China included a little-noticed but significant change to how online purchases will be taxed when they enter the United States.One provision of Mr. Trump’s executive order will increase costs for more than 80 percent of U.S. e-commerce imports. The decision could shift the landscape for online sales from Chinese vendors like Shein and Temu that have swiftly expanded their market share by sending cheap goods into the United States.The president’s order erased a workaround that many companies have taken advantage of in recent years, particularly since Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese products in his first term. The provision, known as the de minimis exception, allowed certain products that were sent directly to consumers from online platforms to come into the United States without facing tariffs, a huge tax advantage.This obscure provision of trade law underpins major business models. Shein, Temu and many sellers on Amazon have used the de minimis exemption to bypass tariffs. The exemption allows packages to be shipped from other countries without paying tariffs, as long as the shipments do not exceed $800 per recipient per day.But critics say the de minimis measure has also helped fuel an American drug crisis. Importers who use de minimis do not have to provide as much information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection as they do with other packages, for ease of processing. That means drugs and the precursors used to make them could be more easily shipped into the United States without the government catching them.De minimis stems from a century-old trade law that was originally intended for shipments that would be too trivial to merit the attention of customs. But the use of this provision has exploded in popularity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Retailers may be taking a more staggered approach to holiday hiring.

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    Every year, retailers race to hire workers to staff their stores and distribution centers to meet the demand that comes with millions of Americans shopping for Christmas and other winter holidays.This seasonal hiring is often seen as a measure of the health of the retail industry and the U.S. economy more broadly.On Wednesday, November data released by the Labor Department showed that seasonal hiring in 2024 in the retail trade sector was lower than a year earlier. But that may also reflect changes in how companies go about it.The struggle to hire workers as the economy reopened in late 2020 and early 2021 led several retailers to start spreading out their hiring throughout the year, relying less on bringing on help rapidly in the weeks immediately before the holiday shopping season. Other retailers have said that they focus on offering their current workers more shifts before hiring seasonal workers.Ahead of the 2024 holiday shopping season, major retailers like Target and Bath & Body Works said they expected their hiring of seasonal workers to be on a par with the year before. Macy’s said it aimed to hire 31,500 workers, slightly down from its target in 2023. Amazon said in October that it would hire 250,000 people to support its fulfillment and transportation operations, in line with its goal from the previous year. At Amazon, the jobs included full-time, part-time and seasonal positions.For retailers, seasonal hiring does not take place just within stores. During the Covid pandemic, as a response to the boom in e-commerce shopping, retailers increasingly focused on hiring people to work within distribution centers that handled online orders.Seasonal hiring has implications beyond December, as many retailers convert a certain percentage of temporary workers to permanent positions. Gap Inc., which also owns Banana Republic and Athleta, said one in 10 of its seasonal workers in 2024 was hired into a full-time position. More than half of Target’s seasonal workers were hired for full-time positions after the 2023 holiday shopping season. More

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    Amazon Warehouse Workers in New York City Join Protest

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    The workers’ union hopes that adding employees at the Staten Island warehouse to a protest started by delivery drivers will increase pressure on Amazon.Signaling an escalation in a labor campaign that began at seven Amazon delivery hubs on Thursday, workers at the company’s largest Staten Island warehouse began a protest there at midnight on Saturday.By late morning, a group of around 100 people — a small percentage of the more than 5,000 workers at that warehouse — had gathered outside. Union organizers had set up tents, food stations and a heater next to a bus station across the street from the warehouse. Many of the workers said they had been scheduled to work that day and did not clock in, while others said they had not been scheduled to work.They were joined by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who spoke briefly and told the workers that “the law is on your side.”“I want all of you to know that Amazon can’t just share the benefits of your hard work at the top,” Ms. James said. “They need to make sure that you are being paid.”New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, visiting Amazon workers on Saturday morning at the Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8.Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesThe workers who joined the labor action said they wanted Amazon to provide better pay, sick leave and working conditions.Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Amazon Delivery Drivers at Seven Hubs Walk Out

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    The retail giant said it expected its operations to be largely unaffected by the strike of some drivers at contracting firms Amazon uses to deliver packages.Workers who deliver packages from seven Amazon facilities across the country went on strike Thursday morning, according to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the union that represents them.The Teamsters said thousands of workers had struck, but it was unclear how many people were participating in the action. Amazon said it expected the seven delivery hubs to operate normally.The drivers are employees of companies that Amazon uses to deliver packages to customers. Amazon has said it has no obligation to bargain with the drivers because they are not its employees. But the union and the workers said Amazon ultimately controlled their working conditions and was therefore obligated to negotiate a contract that would improve their pay and make the work less taxing.The National Labor Relations Board has investigated some of the cases and issued at least one complaint finding the drivers to be Amazon employees and accusing the company of breaking the law by failing to bargain with them.The Teamsters said in a statement that workers at other Amazon warehouses were prepared to join the strike. The largest group at Amazon represented by the union works at a Staten Island warehouse known as JFK8, which employs more than 5,000 people. Employees at the warehouse voted to unionize in 2022, but the company has yet to bargain with them and is challenging the election outcome.Workers involved in the strike say it could extend into early next week, perhaps into Christmas, but it’s unclear how big an impact the walkout will have on Amazon’s holiday deliveries.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Amazon Disregarded Internal Warnings on Injuries, Senate Investigation Claims

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    A staff report by the Senate labor committee, led by Bernie Sanders, uncovered evidence of internal concern about high injury rates at the e-commerce giant.For years, worker advocates and some government officials have argued that Amazon’s strict production quotas lead to high rates of injury for its warehouse employees. And for years, Amazon has rejected the criticism, arguing that it doesn’t use strict quotas, and that its injury rates are falling close to or below the industry average.On Sunday, the majority staff of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, published an investigation that found that Amazon itself had documented the link between its quotas and elevated injury rates.Internal company documents collected by Mr. Sanders’s investigators show that Amazon health and safety personnel recommended relaxing enforcement of the production quotas to lower injury rates, but that senior executives rejected the recommendations apparently because they worried about the effect on the company’s performance.The report also affirmed the findings of investigations undertaken by a union-backed group showing that injury rates at Amazon were almost twice the average for the rest of the industry.“The shockingly dangerous working conditions at Amazon’s warehouses revealed in this 160-page report are beyond unacceptable,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “Amazon’s executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries.”Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the internal studies and recommendations Mr. Sanders’s report cited were later found by the company to be invalid. “Sen. Sanders’ report is wrong on the facts and weaves together out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a preconceived narrative,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Amazon Sought Tariff Loophole Used by Chinese Rivals. Now Biden Is Closing It.

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    Under pressure from Chinese competitors, Amazon, Walmart and other U.S. retailers have been exploring ways to avoid tariffs. Could a new Biden administration rule change that?Major American retailers including Amazon and Walmart have been quietly exploring shifting toward a business model that would ship more goods directly to consumers from Chinese factories and require fewer U.S. workers in retail stores and logistics centers.The plans have been driven by the rocketing popularity of Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu, which have won over consumers with their low prices. These platforms ship inexpensive products directly to consumers’ doorsteps, allowing them to bypass American tariffs on Chinese goods, along with the hefty costs associated with brick-and-mortar stores, warehousing and distribution networks.Rising competition from Shein, Temu and other Chinese companies is pushing many major U.S. retailers to consider shifting to a similar model to qualify for an obscure, century-old U.S. trade law, according to several people familiar with the plans. The law, known as de minimis, allows importers to bypass U.S. taxes and tariffs on goods as long as shipments do not exceed $800 in value.But that trend toward changing business models may have been disrupted on Friday, when the Biden administration abruptly moved to close off de minimis eligibility for many Chinese imports, including most clothing items. In an announcement Friday morning, the Biden administration said it would clamp down on the number of packages that come into the country duty-free using de minimis shipping, particularly from China.The Biden administration’s changes will not go into effect immediately. The proposal will be subject to comment by industry before being finalized in the coming months, and some imports from China would still qualify for a de minimis exemption.But Friday’s action may head off a change that has been looming in global retail. Amazon has been preparing a new discount service that would ship products directly to consumers, allowing those goods to bypass tariffs, according to people familiar with the plans. Even companies that preferred to keep their business models as-is — like Walmart — have been forced to consider using more de minimis to compete.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 113 Shares149 Views

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    Teamsters Struggle to Unionize Amazon and FedEx Delivery Workers

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    The Teamsters union has made little headway in organizing workers at Amazon and FedEx despite wage and other gains it secured at UPS last year.Last year, two unions representing workers at three large automakers and UPS negotiated new labor contracts that included big raises and other gains. Leaders of the unions — the United Automobile Workers and the Teamsters — hoped the wins would help them organize workers across their industry.The U.A.W. won one vote to unionize a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee last month and lost one this month at two Mercedes-Benz plants in Alabama. The Teamsters have made even less progress at UPS’s big nonunion rivals in the delivery business, Amazon and FedEx.Polling shows that public support for unions is the highest it has been in decades. But labor experts said structural forces would make it hard for labor groups to increase their membership, which is the lowest it has been as a percentage of the total work force in decades. Unions also face stiff opposition from many employers and conservative political leaders.The Teamsters provide an instructive case study. Many of the workers doing deliveries for Amazon and FedEx work for contractors, typically small and medium-size businesses that can be hard to organize. And delivery workers employed directly by FedEx in its Express business are governed by a labor law that requires unions to organize all similar workers at the company nationally at once — a tougher standard than the one that applies to organizing employees at automakers, UPS and other employers.Some labor experts also said the Teamsters had not made as forceful a push as the U.A.W. to organize nonunion workers after securing a new contract with UPS.“You didn’t have that energy that you saw with the U.A.W.’s leaders,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist who studies labor at Washington University in St. Louis.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More