Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien (center) is shown rallying with Amazon workers outside Amazon’s JFK8 facility in Staten Island on June 19 in New York.

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Thousands of Amazon workers were expected to take part in a strike starting Thursday morning, launched by the Teamsters union to pressure the retail giant to recognize its unionized workers in the United States

The strike, expected to focus on seven Amazon facilities nationwide, comes during the holiday shopping rush and could be the country’s largest union action against Amazon yet.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says it represents around 10,000 Amazon employees and contractors in warehouses, delivery and air hubs. Amazon has refused to recognize the union; It employs about 1.5 million people, excluding part-time workers and contractors.

Now warehouse workers and delivery drivers at seven facilities have organized a strike to pressure the company to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement that would include changes to pay, benefits and working conditions. Workers in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Skokie, Illinois, planned to join the picket line.

And the Teamsters say they are also organizing pickets at “hundreds” of other warehouses and delivery centers and are encouraging non-union workers to picket under U.S. labor law, which protects workers’ right to collective action to advance their interests .

The Teamsters told NPR that the strike would last longer than a day, but did not say how long. The union said the workers will be paid strike pay of $1,000 per week by the union.

Amazon has not commented on the strike since it was announced on Wednesday.

“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed,” Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said in a statement. “We have given Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do the right thing for our members. They ignored it.”

The Teamsters had given Amazon until December 15 to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with its unionized workers.

“These workers are exercising their power,” said Randy Korgan, the Teamsters’ national director for Amazon. “They now realize that there is a way to take on a corporate giant like this – that they have the power.”

Last week, Amazon accused the Teamsters of illegally threatening workers and coercing them into joining their union.

“For more than a year, the Teamsters have intentionally misled the public by claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.’ “That is not the case,” said Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards on Friday.

The Teamsters had been organizing Amazon delivery drivers and other workers for years and pushing for Amazon to recognize their union organization. In June, Amazon’s first unionized warehouse in Staten Island, NY – two years after it made history by voting to join the nascent Amazon Labor Union – also joined the Teamsters.

The union is among the most powerful in the United States and Canada, representing 1.3 million people.

Amazon continually fought union efforts in court and also contested its formal status as an employer of contract workers.

The company’s workers in Germany said Thursday they planned to strike alongside their U.S. colleagues, the German Services Union said. Amazon has previously faced strikes around the holidays in Germany and Spain to demand better wages and working conditions.

“It’s the holiday season. People expect deliveries. This is the moment when workers have an impact on the supply chain,” said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University.

The Teamsters point out that Amazon’s profits have risen sharply during the pandemic and since. The company is now worth more than $2.3 trillion and reported net income of $15 billion in the last quarter alone. It is the second largest private employer in the United States after Walmart.

Editor’s note: Amazon is one of NPR’s recent financial supporters.