A decision handed down in the final days of 2025 in the ongoing dance among Amazon, the Teamsters and a now-closed Direct Service Provider (DSP) is another development in the union-driven effort to organize the drivers who deliver parcels to homes and businesses. It also is the key ongoing legal process on the question of whether Amazon is a joint employer with its DSPs. The decision December 29 by the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that Amazon could not be granted a temporary injunction that would halt ongoing proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regarding Battle Tested Strategies (BTS), a DSP that had been operating out of Palmdale, California before its contract was yanked by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) in 2023. That action led to unfair labor practice allegations leveled against Amazon by the union before the NLRB. window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []}; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot(‘/21776187881/FW-Responsive-Main_Content-Slot1’, [[300, 100], [320, 50], [728, 90], [468, 60]], ‘div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0’).defineSizeMapping(gptSizeMaps.banner1).addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(); googletag.pubads().collapseEmptyDivs(); googletag.enableServices(); }); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1709668545404-0’); }); The lower court ruling, affirmed in the appeal, was that under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, judges could not issue an injunction in a labor dispute. Also at issue was the recent lack of a quorum on the NLRB. That quorum only recently has been restored with Senate confirmation of three new members. An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible. As the NLRB Edge Substack noted, the Fifth Circuit made an opposite ruling over the summer regarding a judge’s ability to issue an injunction…
