I can't help but chime in on this thread. My husband is a pilot at another airline that flies for Amazon, though he just recently switched from flying for a commercial regional airline.
In regards to the timing of the strike - pilot unions don't get to decide when to strike. In fact, the pilot group of ABX voted, by an overwhelming margin (99%), to strike way back in May. Due to the fact that transportation is considered an essential industry, pilot unions must be released by a judge to strike. The 6-month wait between voting and being released was actually relatively fast - the average is something like 2 years.
In my experience as an onlooker throughout my husband's career, pilots rarely agree to the tune of 99% on any issue. The airline must have been treating them really, really badly.
The pilot union struck to enforce the status quo - that is, the airline had been blatantly violating the contract for about a year. They were requiring pilots to fly during their vacation time without providing vacation at a later date, as required by the contract.
I can only imagine the airline has been running the pilots ragged for a while. They fly 20 airplanes for Amazon, in addition to some for DHL. Most passenger airlines need about 10 pilots per airplane; cargo airlines need about twice that. ABX employs 250 pilots, only about 10 pilots per airplane if you only count the Amazon flying. They are way understaffed.
My blood was boiling when I read that line "Imagine Christmas without Amazon!" It makes me livid that a judge thinks my husband's safety isn't as important as someone getting their Amazon package in 2 days instead of 5.