Teamsters picket Amazon delivery sites in Los Angeles and Queens over alleged retaliation

Teamsters staged coordinated pickets Friday at Amazon delivery facilities in the Los Angeles area and in Queens, saying the action was prompted by what the union alleges was retaliation against unionized California drivers after Amazon ended a subcontractor’s agreement.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, in an April 24 press release titled “Teamsters Picket Amazon Facilities on Both Coasts Over Illegal Firings,” said drivers at Amazon’s DAX7 delivery station in the South Gate-Los Angeles area extended picket lines to DBK4, an Amazon facility in Maspeth, Queens. The union said DAX7 drivers joined Teamsters Local 396 last month and that Amazon then canceled the contract of their Delivery Service Partner, or DSP, Next Stop.

Federal labor records show the dispute is already before the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that enforces U.S. private-sector labor law, though the allegations have not been finally adjudicated. NLRB case 21-CA-385407, filed April 22, lists Amazon Logistics/Amazon.com Services LLC and Next Stop Logistics as parties, with Teamsters Local 396 as the charging party. The docket includes an allegation of “Repudiation/Modification of Contract.” A second case, 21-CA-383496, filed March 24, also names Amazon entities and Next Stop Logistics. That filing lists Teamsters Local 396 and the Teamsters Amazon National Negotiating Committee as charging parties and includes allegations such as refusal to recognize the union, refusal to furnish information and coercive statements or actions.

Those filings do not amount to a finding that Amazon or Next Stop broke the law. They do, however, show that the Teamsters’ claims are part of an active legal fight over Amazon’s delivery network, which relies heavily on independent DSP companies for last-mile package delivery.

The union is arguing that the DSP model can be used to remove unionized workforces by canceling contracts with the small firms that directly employ drivers. Amazon has long structured much of its delivery operation around those contractors, while labor groups contend the company exercises enough control over the work to bear responsibility for drivers’ jobs and labor rights.

Randy Korgan, director of the Teamsters Amazon Division, said in the union’s release that “Amazon’s callous terminations show how little this company values the hard work that these drivers do every day and agitates workers all over the country to fight.”

Sara Venegas, whom the Teamsters identified as a DAX7 driver, said, “Every Amazon driver knows that our DSPs can be cut at any time. That’s why we organized with the Teamsters, to fight for real job security at DAX7.”

The Teamsters also tied Friday’s action to an earlier dispute at DBK4. The union said Amazon took the same step there in September 2025, when about 100 members of Teamsters Local 804 lost work after a DSP contract ended. That Queens fight helped spur a legislative push at the New York City Council for the Delivery Protection Act, Intro No. 0518-2026, backed by Councilmember Tiffany Cabán. A council hearing on the bill took place in early April.

Amazon has publicly opposed that measure. In written testimony, the company said the bill would “threaten the more than 40 local small businesses we partner with” and “the jobs of the more than 5,000 people they employ” in New York City.

That policy clash underscores what is at stake in the California and New York disputes: whether contract changes in Amazon’s DSP system are simply a business decision, as Amazon has argued in opposing regulation, or part of a pattern of retaliation against union activity, as the Teamsters allege in the streets and before federal labor regulators. No direct Amazon response to Friday’s pickets or to the specific Next Stop allegation was available in the source material.