This article reports that striking workers in Chicago received an unwelcome visit on their picket line by Gregory Bovino, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commander spearheading the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. According to the Teamsters union, Bovino and his agents rolled up on the picket line of workers on strike against the Mauser company and asked to see identification. Bovino asked one of the workers if he was a U.S. citizen.
This article by Luis Feliz Leon, first published by Labor Notes, describes how the Teamsters and other unions are spinning off momentum from recent organizing fights to new battle fronts across Amazon’s logistics chain.
STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK, June 18, 2024 — Workers at Amazon’s giant JFK8 fulfillment center here ratified affiliation with the 1.3-million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). The results were announced today. According to an Instagram live stream of the tally provided by the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the vote to affiliate with the Teamsters was nearly unanimous, with 98.3 percent approving. Of the nearly 850 workers who cast ballots, 824 voted YES and 14 voted NO. Ten ballots were deemed invalid. The newly chartered local will represent Amazon warehouse workers at JFK8.