The Teamsters union’s strike against Amazon impacts its Skokie, Illinois, location during the holiday shipping season

SKOKIE, Ill. (WLS) – The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon that begins Thursday morning and includes a facility in the northern suburbs.

The union says thousands of Amazon workers will walk off the job at 6 a.m., right in the middle of the busy holiday shipping season.

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The strike will impact a facility in Skokie.

Teamsters leadership is calling the strike the “largest strike against Amazon in U.S. history.”

“The way Amazon treats its workers is un-American,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a news release Wednesday. “Amazon’s so-called ‘leaders’ should treat their workers fairly – they just want to put food on the table for their families. Instead, Amazon executives risk ruining the holidays for their customers because they are addicted to putting profits over people.”

The Skokie Amazon facility “serves thousands of homes throughout Chicagoland. The Teamsters represent hundreds of workers at the facility,” the Teamsters press release reads in part.

The retail giant said its operations would not be affected by any of the union’s actions. Although the Teamsters claim to represent 7,000 Amazon workers nationwide, that represents less than 1% of the company’s U.S. workforce.

The conflict between the union and the online retail giant is just the latest attempt by the Teamsters to put pressure on the company and its strong anti-union policies amid the crucial holiday shopping season. It’s also a sign that unions are trying out new strategies to represent workers at Amazon, America’s second-largest private sector employer.

But Amazon is showing no signs of being willing to reach an agreement with the Teamsters or even acknowledging that the union speaks for any of its workers, even though the union has said that employees at numerous Amazon facilities have signed membership cards .

Amazon issued the following statement to ABC News on Wednesday evening:

“For more than a year, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.’ They don’t and this is another attempt to spread a false narrative. The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to force Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and the subject of several pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.”

CNN Wire contributed to this report.

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