The Amazon Labor Union–IBT Local 1 denounces Amazon’s misleading announcement of a $1 billion “investment” in fulfillment center and transportation employees. This move is a carefully crafted public relations campaign designed to distract from the company’s ongoing union-busting and its refusal to meet its legal obligation to bargain with its unionized employees.

Amazon made over $30 billion in profit last year. One billion dollars spread across over one thousand facilities and hundreds of thousands of workers is pocket change; just a fraction of what is required to fix chronic understaffing, dangerous conditions, and poverty wages inside its warehouses and delivery network. Without worker power and enforceable guarantees, Amazon alone decides how, where, and to whom this money flows.

Amazon’s “compensation philosophy” means record profits for the company and poverty wages for its workers. At JFK8, more than 5,000 workers received just a fifty-cent raise this year. New hires are starting at only $21.75 an hour. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult with no children in the New York metro area needs $28.87 per hour to earn a basic living wage on a full-time schedule. A single adult with two children needs $65.20 an hour. These figures make clear that Amazon’s “investment” still leaves its workers far below a true living wage, especially in one of the most expensive regions in the country.

Amazon highlights a step-plan that they claim rewards tenure, but in reality, workers are capped on raises after just three years. This system serves Amazon’s hire-and-turnover model, ensuring that most workers do not see meaningful pay growth while the company can continue to hire new employees at lower wages, maximizing their profits at the expense of worker stability and economic security.

While mainstream media headlines tout Amazon’s pay raises and benefits expansion as generous, the reality on the warehouse floor is far bleaker. Amazon’s enormous advertising budget and public relations machine may buy favorable coverage, but it cannot hide the facts: poverty wages, high injury rates, retaliation against organizing, and a company determined to control every aspect of its workers’ lives.

Real investment in workers means putting power in our hands. It means:

• Immediate recognition and bargaining with the Amazon Labor Union–IBT Local 1 at JFK8 and other facilities unionized under the Teamsters, ending Amazon’s legal delay tactics and retaliation.

• Binding, enforceable safety standards covering heat, air quality, staffing levels, workload, ergonomic workstations, and accommodation requests, negotiated with workers, not imposed unilaterally.

• Across-the-board wage and benefit increases that actually keep pace with the cost of living and reflect the true value of workers’ labor.

• An end to surveillance, retaliation, and intimidation against workers who exercise their legal right to organize.

Amazon workers built this company into one of the most powerful corporations on Earth. We deserve dignity, safety, and a real voice on the job. The Amazon Labor Union–IBT Local 1 will continue to organize, build worker power, and fight for a binding contract that puts the needs of working people ahead of corporate greed.

We call on the public, elected officials, and fellow workers everywhere to see through this $1 billion PR campaign and stand with Amazon workers demanding justice.

September 29, 2025
Contact: Sultana Hossain
shossain@amazonlaborunion.org