Across the country this holiday season, Amazon workers, Starbucks workers, and others are striking to demand better pay and working conditions. Corporate greed and monopoly rule over workers’ daily lives, including lawless and illegal union busting campaigns, has led to workers taking decisive action to stand up for their own rights and the rights of the entire working class.

Earlier this month, the Amazon Teamsters, now a national division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, gave Jeff Bezos’ monster warehouse and retail firm a deadline of Dec. 15 to follow the law and agree to bargaining dates for a union contract. Amazon ignored it.

On Thursday, Dec. 19, nearly 10,000 Amazon workers went out on Unfair Labor Practice strikes around the country, including in New York, Georgia, California, Illinois, and elsewhere. In New York, they were joined by members of the United Auto Workers, New York State Nurses Association, SEIU 32BJ, community activists, and a number of progressive elected officials.

The World Federation of Trade Unions, representing 105 million workers around the world, registered their solidarity with the Amazon workers, adding that “the class struggle in the U.S. is sharpening, and the WFTU extends its complete support for the just demands of the Amazon workers and encourages all its affiliates and friends to express their solidarity with the strikers.”

Flight attendants ready to strike

Members of the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) are also gearing up for a potential strike action against United Airlines following their late August 99.99% strike authorization vote. They organized informational picket lines on Thursday across the country to build pressure on management to engage in good-faith bargaining. United has refused for three and a half years to update their expired contract. At LGA in New York, members of Air Line Pilots Association, SAG-AFTRA, 32BJ, and others joined the flight attendants on the picket line in solidarity.

Starbucks workers on the picket line

In addition, Starbucks Workers United announced on Tuesday that 98% of their members voted to authorize a strike, taking to the picket line today, Friday, Dec. 20th. So far, they are shutting down the Starbucks’ headquarters store in Seattle, another store in Los Angeles, and a third in Chicago’s North Side. Other stores are expected to follow suit over the course of a five-day escalation plan. Starbucks workers have said they plan to build solidarity with the Amazon workers, with strikers from both companies joining each others’ picket lines.

Issues at hand

Overwork, low pay, and an insultingly low-ball offer on the part of the company — a 35-cent raise — is what drove Starbucks workers to walk out. Like Amazon workers, they are protesting Unfair Labor Practices across hundreds of stores, demanding benefits and increased staffing, along with fair raises.

Low wages are also a major sticking point for Amazon workers, in addition to their extremely hazardous working conditions. As reported by People’s World, the $2 trillion behemoth employs one-third of all warehouse workers in the U.S., but is responsible for more than half of all warehouse injuries in the country.

As for the flight attendants, they haven’t seen a pay increase since 2020. Meanwhile, shareholders were awarded $1.5 billion in stock buybacks and executives saw millions of dollars in pay raises. United CEO Scott Kirby’s received a $19 million compensation package in 2023.

The scale of the Amazon strike, with more than 20 warehouse and driver units across the country, is unprecedented, and in some places, police are stepping into the fray on the side of the monopoly capitalist class. In New York on Thursday, the NYPD arrested two workers in Queens, breaking the picket line at the facility there.

The Communist Party USA firmly rejects this anti-worker, pro-corporate maneuvering and calls on N.Y. elected officials to intervene and ensure that workers’ rights are protected.

The Communist Party USA calls on all our members and allies in the labor movement and broader community struggles, and on our elected officials, to stand in solidarity with the workers during the holiday strikes.

In addition to joining the picket lines in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago, Starbucks workers are encouraging their supporters to host small, local flyering events at not-yet union stores between today and Tuesday, Dec 24.

Here are a few locations where you can join Amazon workers on the picket line:

New York
The DBK4 facility in Queens (55-15 Grand Ave, Maspeth, NY 11378)
The JFK8 facility in Staten Island (546 Gulf Ave, Staten Island, NY 10314)

Georgia
The DGT8 facility in Atlanta (6020 Shiloh Rd, Alpharetta, GA 30005)

California
The DCK6 facility in San Francisco (749 Toland St, San Francisco, CA 94124)
The DFX4 facility in Victorville (15272 Bear Valley Rd, Victorville, CA 92395)
The DAX5 facility in Los Angeles (15930 Valley Blvd, City of Industry, CA 91744)
The DAX8 facility in Palmdale (600 Technology Dr, Palmdale, CA 93551)
The KSBD air hub at the San Bernardino International Airport (2535 E 3rd St, San Bernardino, CA 92410)

Illinois
The DIL7 facility in Skokie (3639 W Howard St, Skokie, IL 60076)

All power to the workers!

Images: Photos 1-5 9, 12 by Taryn Fivek / CPUSA: Amazon workers in Queens walk off the job at the DBK4 facility in Maspeth, joined by members of the New York State Nurses Association, NYC Councilmember Brad Lander, and others. Photos 6, 10: AFA members on an informational picket line by Taryn Fivek / CPUSA; Photo 7: UFCW 770 supports Starbucks baristas striking over ULPs by UFCW 770 (X). Photo 8: Starbucks workers ready to strike by St. Louis Starbucks Workers United (X). Photo 11: Police arrest Amazon driver attempting to stop his delivery van in support of the ULP strike NYC by Luis Feliz Leon (X).

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