Online retailer Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has proven surprisingly resilient to labor troubles, even as they seem to crop up constantly. Indeed, shareholders sent shares up fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading even as strikes at the firm picked up.
The delivery driver strike in California has ballooned to be the largest Amazon has ever faced down. Teamsters Local 396 is currently picketing at the LAX5 warehouse in Buena Park, California. That’s warehouse number 32, where unions have set up shop as part of a strike that’s been going on since last June.
The part that makes this particularly strange is that Amazon apparently already knuckled under to the union’s demands and then promptly declared that it didn’t care anyway. The union and Amazon agreed to a new contract, but Amazon hasn’t been living up to it, even firing unionizing workers.
“Close Your Eyes” and Think Happy Thoughts
Meanwhile, reports came out about Amazon’s plans to boost morale at the warehouses that aren’t engaged in a strike. Amazon has established what it calls “ZenBooths,” which are just a walled-off “interactive kiosk” that goes under the name of a “mindful practice room.” A screenshot from the kiosk instructs stressed-out workers to “…close your eyes and think about something that makes you happy” and repeat until a timer ticks down to zero.
That particular warehouse managed to win some pay concessions from Amazon, seeing pay boosted from $17 an hour to $28, though some complaints are apparently still had about working conditions.
Is AMZN Stock a Good Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN stock based on 41 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 86.85% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AMZN price target of $208.48 per share implies 17.87% upside potential.
