Donnell Jefferson has become used to seeing Amazon’s blue delivery vans zip through his Memphis neighborhood, often dropping packages at his neighbors’ doorsteps multiple times a day. In the last few months, he has started striking up conversations with drivers as they whisk boxes to the front stoop. His mission? To find out how much they like the job — and plant the seeds of someday making it a union job.
In one recent conversation, a driver told him he had been getting a raise every few weeks — 15 cents here, 35 cents there, bringing his total hourly wage to $17.35 after two years on the job. Jefferson told him UPS drivers make twice as much. “He dropped his head and shook it. He didn’t realize it,” says Jefferson, 59, a forklift operator who used to work for UPS and has been part of the Teamsters union for 15 years.
This type of local outreach is beginning to unfold across the nation as part of a push by the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, one of the biggest and most powerful unions in the nation, to unionize Amazon after it voted overwhelmingly to go after the e-commerce giant in a resolution this summer.
In one recent conversation, a driver told him he had been getting a raise every few weeks — 15 cents here, 35 cents there, bringing his total hourly wage to $17.35 after two years on the job. Jefferson told him UPS drivers make twice as much. “He dropped his head and shook it. He didn’t realize it,” says Jefferson, 59, a forklift operator who used to work for UPS and has been part of the Teamsters union for 15 years.
This type of local outreach is beginning to unfold across the nation as part of a push by the International Brotherhood of the Teamsters, one of the biggest and most powerful unions in the nation, to unionize Amazon after it voted overwhelmingly to go after the e-commerce giant in a resolution this summer.
