The politics of the Amazon strike hinge on Trump
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images
Donald Trump wasn't physically present at the Amazon workers' strike Thursday, but he's part of the reason the union can flex its muscles with a work stoppage mere days before Christmas.
Why it matters: Since its founding as an indy worker group, the Amazon union joined the Teamsters — one of the biggest in the country — whose president Sean O'Brien just spent the past few months cultivating a relationship with the president-elect.
Zoom out: Trump 2.0 looks a lot more pro-union than 1.0. Just last week, he signaled his support for the Longshoremen in their contract dispute with the shipping companies.
- His pick for Labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, is seen as pro-union.
- And guess who suggested her for the role? O'Brien.
- A Trump spokeswoman, when asked about the Amazon strike, reiterated his campaign pledges to support workers by boosting manufacturing and cutting taxes.
"There is an expectation that he will not be as anti-union as he was in the first cycle," says Patricia Campos Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.
What to watch: Will O'Brien's new Republican allies stand with him?
- The strike "is kind of testing the limits of the right-wing populism of the new Republican Party," John Logan, a labor historian at San Francisco State University, wrote in an email to Axios.
- "Will they side with striking workers over a trillion-dollar company? Is the Teamsters a 'good union' that is worthy of Trump's support?"
Between the lines: After its raucous start and until this week, most of the Amazon union's fight against the company took place behind the scenes at the National Labor Relations Board and in the courts.
- The union hasn't even gotten to the bargaining table for a first contract — Amazon is still disputing its right to exist.
The big picture: The workers' big leverage here, beyond the Trump vibes, lies with the public. Amazon's reputation as an employer has long been under fire — for warehouse workers, delivery drivers and corporate employees, too.
- As the warehouse workers took to the picket lines, the company struck a settlement with OSHA over allegations of widespread workplace safety violations.
- Reports also surfaced that Amazon's return to office push was facing big speed bumps.
- In a survey of Amazon corporate employees out Thursday from a worker advocacy group, nearly half said they've applied to other jobs as a result of the company's push to get folks back in five days a week.
- The company did not respond to a request for comment on the strike or that worker survey, though it previously told Axios that past worker actions haven't disrupted its delivery abilities.
Reality check: Amazon still has plenty of options to fight back.
- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had dinner with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday, part of a warming relationship between the two.
- Despite all of Trump's pro-worker rhetoric, the incoming administration is expected to move the NLRB away from the strongly pro-labor positioning it has taken for the past four years, which would tilt the fight even further in Amazon's favor.
- Amazon has joined SpaceX — run by Elon Musk, Trump's top advisor — in challenging the NLRB's right to exist. (The board has ruled favorably for the Amazon union many times.)
The bottom line: For the union, betting on the Republican Party's newfound populism still looks dicey. Gambling on public support, however, has long been a winning equation for underdog groups.
