Amazon Unleashed Flood of Water on Striking Workers, Say Teamsters
Teamsters requested an investigation of the flood from Amazon’s warehouse that swamped a picket line in Queens; they also filed for a restraining order against the NYPD.
QUEENS, NEW YORK — On the cold afternoon of Saturday, December 21, Amazon Teamsters and allies were walking in a circle in front of the entrance to the delivery station DB4K, holding pre-printed signs demanding “Amazon Obey the Law,” when striking workers were flooded by a torrential outpouring of water from the building.
“This was just like a fire hydrant on full blast,” said Amazon driver Danny Batista. Christian Santana, another driver on the scene, said he had seen water trickle out of the fire suppression system but never a torrent like this. “I’ve seen it open, but I’ve never, ever seen it gushing that much water all at once,” he said. “The thing washed away all the tables, put water on electrical stuff that was out here — that was a real hazard.”
Video courtesy of Ryan Bruckenthal
With temperatures in the low thirties, workers waded through the freezing water, which turned muddy as the fierce water pressure carved a ditch in the ground. Workers scrambled to salvage hand warmers, boxes of beanie hats and shirts, a portable heater, printed hand-outs and food supplies from the rushing water, according to the Teamsters’ complaint to the city about the incident, obtained exclusively by In These Times.
“The flooding created hazardous conditions on the sidewalk,” wrote the legal counsel for Teamsters Local 804 in the complaint to the New York City Law Department, filed December 23. The union goes on to argue that these conditions impeded the striking workers from engaging in protected activity.
The complaint requests that the city investigate the incident due to police inaction. According to a video provided by the Teamsters, when the union officials on the scene asked a New York City Police Department captain to take action, he refused, disputing that the damage to the union’s property entailed “criminal mischief.”
The latest request comes after the Teamsters filed a motion for a restraining order and injunction against the NYPD on Thursday, the first day of the strike. The complaint charged that on the picket line in Queens that day, the police’s actions had “an undisputable effect of interfering with the protected right to picket” by splitting up, threatening, arresting and assaulting picketers.
“Unions can picket, without the NYPD acting as strikebreakers,” the motion asserts.
As In These Times previously reported, a police officer grabbed striking Amazon delivery driver Latrice Johnson, flung her backward and shoved her.
The NYPD and the Teamsters reached an agreement with the judge on Friday that postponed a decision on an injunction.
“The Teamsters have a right to peacefully picketing, including the right to patrol entrances,” a Teamsters official said in a statement summarizing the agreement. “We recognize that pedestrians and vehicles also have a right to reasonable access to pass through.”
Today Amazon waded into the legal fray, requesting a conference with the judge. “While Amazon is not a party to this action, it has a vested interest in protecting its property rights, as well as its ability to conduct its business,” wrote Amazon’s legal counsel Seyfarth Shaw in a letter to the judge. “Accordingly, we seek to intervene in this action.” (Amazon has not yet made any public or legal response to the allegations around the flood, and did not respond to In These Times’ request for comment.)
Between the policing and the flooding, Johnson sees a pattern of intimidation of strikers. She says it was the third time water poured from the building while workers were engaged in union activity, the first two times while Teamsters were tabling.
“We just look at them and laugh, because that’s not going to stop us,” says Johnson. “Every time they try something, we are unstoppable. We don’t stop. A little piece of paper gets wet, okay? That’s nothing that we can’t fix. We’re not going anywhere.”
Four days into the strike, her resolve has been tested repeatedly. On the first day, the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group unit positioned its cops in a line with plastic zip ties clipped to their belts.
As the line of police advanced, it played a warning:
This is the New York City Police Department. You are unlawfully in the roadway and obstructing vehicular traffic. You are ordered to leave the roadway and utilize the available sidewalk. If you do so voluntarily, no charges will be placed against you. If you remain in the roadway and refuse to utilize the sidewalk, you will be placed under arrest and charged with disorderly conduct.
To Johnson, the message was unequivocal: “We will arrest you if you keep striking.”
DBK4 worker Brian Hurley was there when the police played their message — his first time on a picket line. Hurley told Hell Gate reporter Katie Way, “I was a little bit nervous — the nervousness of, are we gonna lose our jobs when we go back? Are we gonna get retaliated against? Are we going to have problems with the police? But I watched the movie Harlan County, USA last night, and it was the same stuff going on back then. It’s the same old story, and eventually you just have to go in and fight for what’s right, regardless of the consequences.”
“The energy here is high, it’s positive,” Hurley said.
The NYPD ultimately arrested an organizer and worker, then released them.
Johnson and her co-workers remain undeterred. “They really want us out, and they’re doing everything in their power,” she says. “But us, the workers, we stood strong and we held our signs up high, and we marched and we did not stop.”
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Luis Feliz Leon is an associate editor and organizer at Labor Notes.
