Hebron, KY: DHL Air Hub Workers Strike while Amazon Workers Organize in Face of Repression

Andrew Grossman

As of December 7^th, 1,100 air cargo hub workers are striking against DHL for the company’s consistent refusal to negotiate a contract with the union since the workers organized with the Teamsters Union in April of this year. Negotiations have been ongoing since July, with the union alleging that DHL is dragging its feet on the contract and retaliating against union workers.

The strike comes during the holiday “peak season” for logistics workers. Typically, peak season allows low-paid, second-tier, and part-time logistics workers to briefly increase their wages due to increased hours and “peak pay bonuses”. However, this time of year also brings mandatory overtime, dangerously high tempos of work work tempos, and grueling hours while logistics corporations rake in profits.

Next door to the striking DHL facility is Amazon’s largest air hub, where workers have been struggling to form a union under the Amazon Labor Union, and have recently reported to the monopoly media multiple acts of intimidation and repression against organizing workers as the union drive gains momentum.

In November, Amazon threatened 12 workers with termination for passing out union literature outside the air hub. Amazon also held mandatory “captive audience” meetings to dissuade workers from organizing, and hired union busting firms in the weeks leading up to the threats of termination. The company claims the threats were due to “violation of policy,” deploying the usual bourgeois rhetoric that workers should individually and without struggle confront the organized power of capital and that unions “get in the way” of this sacred exchange.

For the second year in a row, Amazon air hub workers face mandatory overtime without peak pay, while Amazon continues to rake in record profits. Workers cite dangerous conditions and wages lagging behind inflation. One worker told the monopoly media that multiple co-workers are living out of their cars in the hub’s parking lot due to low wages.

photo: DHL workers picket at the air hub. Teamsters Facebook