For the past two years Amazon workers in Northern Kentucky have been fighting to organize the KCVG air cargo hub located at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG). Amazon KCVG is the largest and most strategically important facility in the Company's air shipping network and has approximately 4,000 workers across multiple departments and shifts. It is also a near carbon copy of UPS Worldport, the largest and most critical component of the UPS air network, located in Louisville, Kentucky where Teamsters Local 89 represents over 10,000 workers.
Originally acting independently as the Amazon KCVG Labor Union, the KCVG workers organizing committee put in an inspiring amount of effort to educate their co-workers about their legal rights, hold rallies, conduct marches on the boss and more. All the while, Amazon predictably reacted with heavy handed union busting tactics like surveillance, intimidation and outright retaliation. By early 2024, the workers organizing efforts had frustrated Amazon enough that they hired dozens of professional union busters who continue to stalk the hallways and caster decks to this day. As workers clashed more and more with the most powerful corporation in the world, they realized the need for additional support, resources, and experience in their righteous fight for justice at Amazon.
In the Spring of 2024, after weeks of in-depth discussions with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) Amazon Division and Teamsters Local 89, the Amazon KCVG Labor Union workers voted overwhelmingly to join forces and fight to organize their air cargo hub under the Teamsters banner. Local 89 was tasked with spearheading this incredibly important campaign due to the immense experience we have with the UPS Worldport Air Hub, the depth of resources at our disposal, and the pivotal role our Local played in the discussions with KCVG workers that allied them with the Teamsters.
Local 89 hit the ground running immediately after the KCVG workers officially took up the Teamsters mantle. Working in partnership with the IBT Amazon Division, our Local permanently stationed two members of our Organizing Department and two rank-and-file volunteer organizers in Northern Kentucky to assess the situation and begin working with the existing worker organizing committee to ramp up the campaign at KCVG.
In the months since, the organizing momentum at Amazon KCVG has grown exponentially. In June, Amazon workers from KCVG and KSBD undertook their first door knocking campaign where they visited hundreds of their co-workers’ homes to speak to them about building union power. In July, KCVG workers participated in an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) Strike over Amazon's illegal union busting actions. The ULP strike lasted approximately four hours and was the first such action ever taken at the KCVG air hub, drawing significant attention from the public, the media, and other Amazon employees at KCVG and across the country. Although brief, the ULP picket line was intended to send the message to Amazon that their workers and our union would not tolerate their illegal anti-union activity. The picket line had an electric and intense energy that inspired those on the line and even those who weren't by showing them they had the right to engage in such protected concerted activity without fear.
The week after the Amazon KCVG ULP Strike, a Federal Judge ruled in favor of an injunction against the CVG Airport Authority filed by Local 89 and the IBT. The Airport Authority had attempted to argue workers did not have the right to picket at the entrances to the Amazon air hub or the DHL air hub that is also located at the CVG Airport and sought to limit any future pickets to a maximum of ten people and move them to a “Free Speech Zone” located two miles away. Had the Airport Authority been successful in their endeavor, it would have done immense damage to workers’ rights and would have effectively eliminated their ability to participate in a legal picket line. This injunction was a consequential victory that ensured Amazon and DHL workers continue to have the right to picket in front of their worksites at the CVG Airport.
Despite these positive developments, it is important for all of us to understand that the fight against Amazon is not one to be taken lightly, and it is not one that will be won quickly. Organizing Amazon will be a national war of attrition against a corporation with unfathomable power, but it must be done. Amazon’s rapid expansion and disregard for workers’ rights represents an existential threat to workers in America and across the world, and they must be confronted head on. If left unchecked, Amazon’s exponential growth and ever-expanding power will dramatically erode the shipping industry standards that Teamsters have spent decades fighting for. The corporate goliath’s insatiable appetite will also put them in direct competition with companies like UPS and DHL, putting good Teamster jobs directly in the crossfire.
Not since Jimmy Hoffa formed the historic National Master Freight Agreement has there been a more daunting yet vital campaign for our union to win. The future of workers’ rights, the ability to improve the jobs and lives of Amazon employees, and maintaining union industry standards at UPS, DHL and countless other companies are all at stake. With so much on the line, it is imperative that Teamsters and Amazon workers everywhere fight back with all we have, because failure is not an option.
Every victory against Amazon, no matter how small or large, is a step forward in the most important fight for workers in modern history. Teamsters Local 89 is proud to be in the trenches and on the frontlines of this war side-by-side with KCVG workers. No matter how long it takes we will remain in the fight until Amazon workers are victorious in bringing this corporation to its knees and winning the justice they deserve.
