Workers at Amazon's massive SWF1 warehouse in Rock Tavern walked off the job in an unfair labor practice strike, claiming the company ignored their safety concerns for months. Striking employees pointed to dangerous conveyor belt speeds, falling packages and cluttered aisles as hazards that went unaddressed, alongside what they described as unfair productivity write-ups and dismissive managers.
The strike was organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents workers at the Orange County facility, according to Hudson Valley Post. The union said workers witnessed Amazon prioritize profits and productivity over safe working conditions. Javier Rivera said workers' safety concerns were repeatedly ignored, and that employees would force Amazon to listen by demonstrating in the street.
Workers also said Amazon's labor sharing policy reportedly reclassified employees into different departments without proper training, according to the same report. They said they had used Amazon's Voice of the Associate internal digital feedback system to flag safety issues, only for the company to delete those posts from the board, workers said.
Union Organizer Says Workers Are Done Waiting
Scott Spath said Amazon wants workers to be scared because the company lacks an answer to worker solidarity and power. He said workers were done waiting for Amazon to fix the problems, and the striking employees demanded Amazon end alleged unfair labor practices at the Rock Tavern facility.
The action follows years of organizing at SWF1. Workers under the banner SWF1United staged a Cyber Monday rally and practice picket outside the facility in November 2023, backed by Teamsters Local 445, demanding lower conveyor speeds, higher pay and better conditions. Local 445 represents logistics, freight and warehouse workers across the Hudson Valley region and has actively supported organizing at SWF1. Before the walkout, workers had already used internal petitioning and floor actions to force Amazon to pay employees during certain facility shutdowns, allow co-worker representation during disciplinary meetings, and protect break schedules, per the union.
Amazon Calls Demonstration Illegal Intimidation
Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said the Teamsters' demonstration was an illegal attempt to threaten and intimidate workers, and that it blocked facility entry and exit while interfering with operations. Hards said Amazon employees can choose whether to join a union, and that the company provides safe and inclusive workplaces, competitive pay, health benefits on day one and career growth opportunities. She added that Amazon teams remained focused on delivering for customers.
A company representative identified as Woods said the strike was started, initiated and attended mostly by outside organizers, and that the protest did not impact operations at the Hudson Valley warehouse, according to the Hudson Valley Post's reporting.
State Law and Federal Findings Frame the Dispute
New York's Warehouse Worker Protection Act, which took effect in June 2023, requires distribution centers with 100 or more employees at a single site to provide written descriptions of productivity quotas, according to the New York State Department of Labor. The law also bars quotas that prevent workers from taking mandatory meal or rest breaks. State lawmakers passed the measure specifically to address high injury rates tied to unannounced or high-speed productivity quotas.
Federal data offers some context for why conveyor speeds have become such a flashpoint at SWF1. Amazon's Rock Tavern warehouse recorded an injury rate of 6.3 per 100 full-time workers in 2022, with 97 percent of those injuries severe enough to require missed workdays or restricted light duty, per federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration figures. An 18-month U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee investigation concluded in December 2024 that Amazon recorded workplace injury rates 30 percent higher than the warehousing industry average in 2023, according to the Washington Post. Senate investigators had analyzed seven years of internal corporate injury logs and interviewed more than 130 warehouse employees for that inquiry.
A separate Senate HELP Committee report released in July 2024 found that Amazon's overall employee injury rate approached 45 per 100 workers during high-volume sales periods like Prime Day 2019, based on internal corporate data. A May 2024 report by the Strategic Organizing Center found that while Amazon employed about 35 percent of all U.S. warehouse workers in 2023, its facilities accounted for 53 percent of all serious workplace injuries across the national warehousing industry.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Teamsters-Backed Walkouts
The Rock Tavern strike arrives amid a wave of short-term unfair labor practice actions at Amazon facilities nationwide. Earlier in September, roughly 100 workers at Amazon's DJT6 delivery station in Riverside, California, staged a 24-hour walkout organized with Teamsters Local 1932 over safety concerns and retaliatory discipline, as Hoodline previously reported. That organizing push traces back in part to the Amazon Labor Union's June 2024 vote to affiliate with the Teamsters, forming ALU-IBT Local 1 after the union's landmark 2022 election victory at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island.
Amazon has consistently maintained that its facilities meet high safety standards and that employees retain full choice over union representation, even as Teamsters-backed walkouts continue to expand across facilities in New York and California.
