Teamsters President Sean O'Brien is reportedly escalating his union's fight with Amazon, calling the e-commerce giant the Teamsters' "biggest opponent" and branding it a "white-collar crime syndicate."
O'Brien, who has made organizing Amazon a priority, argued that the company's size and reach, from delivery to cloud computing, make it a unique threat to blue-collar workers and the broader working class.
"They are the worst," the union leader told the Washington Examiner, warning that Amazon is "emerging as a behemoth that is going to destroy the working class if we don't fight."
O'Brien pointed to a report he attributed to The Boston Globe indicating that only about 2,400 Amazon employees in Massachusetts receive food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The union president said that number suggests Amazon is not doing enough for its workers and questioned how large the figure might be nationwide.
He also accused the corporation of exploiting distressed communities and using its growth to expand its influence far beyond traditional retail, a concern that overlaps with broader concerns about Big Tech's economic and cultural power.
In O'Brien's framing, Amazon is not simply a successful business but a dominant institution that can shape labor markets, local economies, and public policy.
Amazon pushed back sharply.
Spokeswoman Eileen Hards told the Examiner that the Teamsters "continue to mislead the public with false claims and illegal tactics — including threatening and intimidating workers — to coerce people into joining them," saying there are "multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union."
Hards added that Amazon already provides what the union is demanding, including "competitive pay," "health benefits on day one," and "opportunities for career growth."
O'Brien also weighed in on artificial intelligence and the future workforce, arguing the technology could reduce the number of white-collar jobs that require college degrees while boosting demand for skilled trades — work that cannot be done by software.
"AI can't swing a hammer, unclog a toilet, or wire a house," he said, predicting a larger pipeline into trade schools and blue-collar industries that may translate to union growth.
The comments come as O'Brien has increasingly broken with Democrats and positioned the Teamsters as a politically independent force.
Before last year's presidential election, O'Brien blasted the Democratic Party for abandoning working Americans, asserting Democrats are "bought and paid for by Big Tech."
He noted that the union declined to endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris for president and said rank-and-file Teamsters backed President Donald Trump by wide margins.
In the Teamsters' own explanation for withholding an endorsement, the union said it did not receive "serious commitments" from either major candidate on key issues, including pledges not to interfere in union campaigns and to honor workers' right to strike.
O'Brien's attacks on Amazon show that populist labor anger no longer is automatically directed at Republicans; Big Tech, once mostly defended by the left, has increasingly become a common target across the right and parts of organized labor.
Newsmax wires contributed to this report.
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