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industry. The e-commerce giants have incredibly high
turnover with a relatively small permanent employee
workforce, and they rely heavily on temporary help.
Most of the workers who move the goods through these
facilities are employed by third-party agencies and have
no job security, few if any benefits, and absolutely no
power. Also, much of the work is increasingly automated, displacing even more workers. These trends are being
copied across the logistics industry by large and small
players. We see it at most warehouses where we have
been organizing. All of this poses enormous challenges
for workers to organize.
QHow do you figure out the logistics of organizing workers who are so dispersed, where you might have
four workers at this location, five workers at that location, and so on?
AThis is what we do, what the job of organizing is. Our model relies on one-on-one conversations with
workers and their families outside of their workplace, in
addition to on the job. It is hard, but we have tools to
help us figure out the logistics and track our progress. It
has always been boots on the ground, with one-on-one
communication to organize workers. In that regard, our
current Teamster members—those working in the same
industry as the workers we’re trying to reach—can be
the most effective advocates in describing the rights and
benefits they have gained.
QWhat is the biggest challenge you expect to face as you expand your organizing efforts into areas that
have been largely foreign to the Teamsters?
AThere are not too many areas foreign to the Teamsters. We pride ourselves on being one of the most diverse
labor organizations in the world, having members that
range from airline pilots to zookeepers. However, our
organizing efforts these days are focused primarily on
transportation and the global supply chain. Here, we are
uniquely positioned to take advantage of our existing
power in freight, warehousing, package delivery, ports,
and air cargo down to the last leg of the product chain in
waste management and recycling.
Again, the principal obstacle faced by workers is the
lack of effective protections when they organize. Labor
law has not kept pace with modern corporate practices of outsourcing, the misclassification of employees
