Amazon workers will go on strike in several US warehouses during the Christmas season

Thousands of Amazon employees in the United States will stop working Thursday morning, in the crucial final days of the holiday season, after union leaders said the retailer had not come to the negotiating table to agree contracts.

The strike is a challenge to Amazon operations as it races to fill orders during its busiest time of the year, even though facilities represented by the union make up only about 1% of Amazon’s hourly workforce. In the New York area, for example, the company has several warehouses and small delivery depots.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said unionized workers at facilities in New York, Skokie, Illinois, Atlanta, San Francisco and Southern California will join the picket line to seek contracts that guarantee better wages and working conditions.

The Teamsters union has said it represents about 10,000 workers at 10 of the company’s U.S. facilities. Workers at seven of those facilities will strike Thursday, the Teamsters said.

An Amazon spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The union had given Amazon until Sunday to begin negotiations, and workers at the facility recently voted to authorize a strike.

Local unions are also setting up picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers across the country, the union said in a statement Wednesday.

Observers said Amazon is unlikely to come to the negotiating table, estimating it could open the door to additional union action.

“Amazon has clearly developed a strategy of ignoring its workers’ rights to collectively organize and bargain,” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School.

He noted that more than two years after workers at a Staten Island warehouse became the first in the United States to vote to unionize, Amazon still has not recognized the group.

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