Workers of e-commerce giant Amazon at KSBD, the company's regional air hub in Southern California, have delivered a petition calling for an improvement in working conditions.
Their demands include a pay rise, safer working conditions and the right to a witness in meetings with management.
The petition comes a week after Amazon announced pay rates well below the industry standard in the package delivery and warehousing industry fixed by the Teamsters at UPS.
Delivery drivers from Palmdale, California, have extended their picket line outside the KSBD facility as part of a three-month unfair labour practice (ULP) strike, which started on 24 June 2023.
KSBD is the 14th Amazon warehouse that the Palmdale Teamsters have picketed, alongside others in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey.
The facility is claimed to be the largest air facility on the West Coast and is a key Amazon logistics network.
The UPS Teamsters, including full-time drivers and part-time warehouse workers, organised a national strike earlier in 2023 and forced the company to raise the minimum warehouse wages for new hires by $5.50 an hour.
A KSBD worker in the ramp department and Inland Empire Amazon Workers United organising committee member Rex Evans said: "We are delivering a petition, signed by hundreds of workers, demanding a base pay of $25 an hour from Amazon. We deserve to be paid our worth and we are worth more than poverty wages from a trillion-dollar company.
"Amazon workers have to choose between paying our bills and buying food. Amazon must do better and we will keep building worker power and fighting until we are paid fairly and treated with respect."
In July 2023, the British general trade union GMB announced that 900 workers at Amazon’s warehouse in Coventry are set to hold a three-day strike over a pay dispute.
