- Amazon workers at a UK warehouse are striking on one of the retailer’s busiest days, Black Friday.
- About 1,000 staff walked out over demands for better pay and working conditions.
- The company is also facing action in the US, France, Germany and other countries.
Some Amazon workers in the UK have gone on strike this Black Friday in what a union called the largest day of industrial disruption in the company’s 30-year history.
The online retail giant also faces action and protests in the US, France, Germany and dozens of other countries as part of a day of action called “Make Amazon Pay.”
At Amazon’s Coventry warehouse in England, where pay disputes have been ongoing for the last year, the GMB union said more than 1,000 workers would join a picket line.
The union held a demonstration in support of the striking workers outside Amazon’s UK headquarters in London.
Polly Thompson
“Amazon is a company that turns Jeff Bezos into the world’s richest man to the point where he can go to space. And yet our members are not only struggling to live, but they’re having to work under horrendous conditions,” Andy Prendergast, GMB’s national secretary, told Business Insider at the London protest.
“No matter how quick they go, it’s never fast enough. And they’ve had enough, which is why they are striking in such huge numbers today.”
“Today will go down in history as a turning point in Amazon’s history,” said Amanda Gearing, a GMB organizer. “Working people that make Amazon’s business model possible stand up to demand their share of the company’s enormous wealth.”
Amazon also faces action at workers in warehouses in France and Germany, while protests over the Black Friday weekend are being co-ordinated by the UNI Global Union, which represents more than 80 international trade unions and workers rights activists.
Christy Hoffman, UNI general secretary, said the day of action was part of a “movement to hold Amazon accountable … we are all united in the fight for higher wages, an end to unreasonable quotas, and a voice on the job,” she said.
Gearing said Friday’s strikes would be “the largest day of industrial disruption in Amazon’s 30-year history.”
Jacob King/PA/Getty Images
Though Black Friday is one of the company’s busiest shopping days, an Amazon representative told Business Insider that the action would cause “zero disruption to customers.”
Gavin Davies, a GMB representative, claimed Amazon had brought in other workers to minimize union disruption over the past year. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The company has about 75,000 UK workers, but in the past year has been embroiled in an ongoing dispute over pay and conditions. The GMB union says Amazon has ignored its requests.
At the Coventry warehouse, GMB membership has increased fivefold in the past 12 months, per The Guardian.
Polly Thompson / Business Insider
In October, Amazon announced a wage increase which it said would cost $213 million (£170 million).
“By April 2024, our minimum starting pay will have increased to £12.30 and £13 per hour depending on location – that’s a 20% increase over two years and 50% since 2018,” the representative said.
Amazon said pay was already above the UK’s National Living Wage rate and that it offered employees a range of benefits, career opportunities and a good working environment.
In the UK, the minimum wage has just been increased from $13.08 to $14.36 an hour.
“All wage increase is good, but we have to look at that in the context of some of the highest inflation we’ve had in the last 30 years,” Prendergast said. “When a company is posting profits the size of Amazon, then quite frankly they want more than the crumbs off the table.”
